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Scientists have unearthed new evidence in Greece proving that the island of Naxos was inhabited by Neanderthals and earlier humans at least 200,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously believed. The findings, published today in the journal Science Advances, are based on years of excavations and challenge current thinking about human movement in the region -- long thought to have been inaccessible and uninhabitable to anyone but modern humans. The new evidence is leading researchers to reconsider the routes our early ancestors took as they moved out of Africa into Europe and demonstrates their ability to...

A large-scale study conducted by an international team of scientists has revealed that the mysterious skeletons of Roopkund Lake - once thought to have died during a single catastrophic event - belong to genetically highly distinct groups that died in multiple periods in at least two episodes separated by one thousand years... Situated at over 5000 meters above sea-level in the Himalayan Mountains of India, Roopkund Lake has long puzzled researchers due to the presence of skeletal remains from several hundred ancient humans, scattered in and around the lake's shores, earning it the nickname Skeleton Lake or Mystery Lake... Whole...

A boat made of reeds will be put to the test by a team of intrepid adventurers when they embark on the 800 mile journey from the Black Sea to Crete in August. The voyage aboard the vessel — the 'Abora IV' — is hoped will prove that the ancient Egyptians could have made similar trips in reed boats thousands of years ago. The 46 feet-long (14 metre) boat will be crewed by a team of two dozen researchers and volunteers, from eight different countries. Setting out from the Bulgarian port of Varna, on the Black Sea, the voyagers will...

The French navy has located one of its submarines that disappeared more than 50 years ago with 52 crew on board. La Minerve was discovered on the seabed in the Mediterranean off the port of Toulon. “It’s a success, a relief and a technical feat,” Florence Parly, the defence minister, tweeted. “I am thinking of the families who have waited for so long for this moment.” La Minerve was on a military exercise when it disappeared in January 1968. Repeated searches have failed to find the vessel until now. Under pressure from relatives of crew members, a fresh search was...

“There is a likely chance of tsunami waves reaching the shores of Israel,” says Dr. Beverly Goodman of the Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences at the University of Haifa following an encompassing geo-archaeological study at the port of Caesarea. “Tsunami events in the Mediterranean do occur less frequently than in the Pacific Ocean, but our findings reveal a moderate rate of recurrence,” she says. Dr. Goodman, an expert geo-archaeologist, exposed geological evidence of this by chance. Her original intentions in Caesarea were to assist in research at the ancient port and at offshore shipwrecks. “We expected to find...

A total of seventy (70) partly or fully preserved Chian amphorae were recovered, which raised the number of amphorae stowed under the foredeck of the ship’s hold to ninety nine (99). Most of these amphorae were most probably carrying wine but at least one was full of olive pits, possibly for consumption by the crew. Also, two fishing weights were found, which offer us a glimpse of the life onboard the merchantmen of the period. Underneath the cargo, the wooden hull was poorly preserved, most probably (as a result of the wrecking episode and (the subsequent natural site formation processes...

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called on Turkey to respect International Law at the Press Conference following the 5th trilateral meeting in Israel with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday... “We have emphasised the need for respect of international law in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean. Respecting, in particular, the right of Cyprus to exercise its sovereign rights in its EEZ “. Mr Tsipras went on to underline the need for a just and viable solution of the Cypriot problem with the scrapping of the guarantees on the occupied part of the island and...

Europe's biggest volcano spews lava as earthquakes signal latest return to life By Cahal Milmo 28 October 2002 Mount Etna, the largest active volcano in Europe, exploded into life again yesterday, spurting molten rock 650ft into the air above Sicily and producing streams of lava that engulfed small buildings on the island. Officials evacuated the area in the path of the lava flows after a new vent opened early yesterday morning. There were no reports of injuries. By late afternoon, the eruption had destroyed a line of ski-lift pylons used to reach the summit, as well as a pine forest....

The exploration vessel Nautilus, with a team of experts of the University of Haifa’s Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, headed by Prof. Zvi Ben Avraham, discovered for the first time an area of reefs with deep-sea corals in the Mediterranean, offshore of Israel. This area apparently stretches over a few kilometers, 700 meters under the surface and some 30-40 km off the coast of Tel Aviv. According to the researchers, this southeastern region of the Mediterranean has only sparse sea life and therefore the discovery is in fact parallel to discovering an oasis in the middle of an...

Some 3,500 years ago, there was already a brisk trade in fish on the shores of the southeastern Mediterranean Sea. This conclusion follows from the analysis of 100 fish teeth that were found at various archeological sites in what is now Israel. The saltwater fish from which these teeth originated is the gilthead sea bream, which is also known as the dorade. It was caught in the Bardawil lagoon on the northern Sinai coast and then transported from Egypt to sites in the southern Levant. This fish transport persisted for about 2,000 years, beginning in the Late Bronze Age and...

The Barak-8 missile is launched during a test. (photo credit: IAI) Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) will provide advanced defense systems to Israel Navy’s new Sa’ar-6 corvettes to protect strategic maritime assets, the defense giant announced on Tuesday. The contract was led by the navy, the Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D) and the procurement administration in Israel’s Defense Ministry. The Barak-8 system was chosen after it was demonstrated to meet the operational requirements and future challenges faced by Israel’s navy. The systems will be used to protect Israel’s exclusive economic zone and strategic facilities that are faced with diversified...

Russia cannot compel Iranian forces to quit Syria, Moscow's ambassador to Tel Aviv said on Monday, rebuffing Israel's long-standing demand that it should work to ensure their total withdrawal from the country. "They are playing a very, very important role in our common and joint effort to eliminate terrorists in Syria," Ambassador Anatoly Viktorov told Israel's Channel 10 television in an interview. "That is why, for this period of time, we see as non-realistic any demands to expel any foreign troops from the entirety of the Syrian Arab Republic," he said. "We can talk with our Iranian partners very frankly...

Italy’s interior minister has sparked a new migration crisis in the Mediterranean by barring two rescue boats from bringing refugees to shore, a week . “Two other ships with the flag of Netherlands, Lifeline and Seefuchs, have arrived off the coast of Libya, waiting for their load of human beings abandoned by the smugglers,” Matteo Salvini, the leader of the anti-immigrant party the League, wrote on his Facebook page. “These gentlemen know that Italy no longer wants to be complicit in the business of illegal immigration, and therefore will have to look for other ports [not Italian] where to go.”...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Odysseus, who voyaged across the wine-dark seas of the Mediterranean in Homer’s epic, may have had some astonishingly ancient forerunners. A decade ago, when excavators claimed to have found stone tools on the Greek island of Crete dating back at least 130,000 years, other archaeologists were stunned—and skeptical. But since then, at that site and others, researchers have quietly built up a convincing case for Stone Age seafarers—and for the even more remarkable possibility that they were Neandertals, the extinct cousins of modern humans. The finds strongly suggest that the urge to go to sea, and the cognitive and...

Olmert: Syrian peace overtures not genuine PM Olmert says Israel is for making peace with all its neighbors, describes Assad's peace overtures as false pretenses Ronny Sofer Latest Update: 12.20.06, 15:16 Prime Minister Ehud Olmert renewed his opposition to peace talks with Syria , describing recent peace overtures by Syrian President Bashar Assad as false pretenses. "Syria continues to support terror in Iraq, is collaborating with the Iranian President and is sparing no effort to topple the government of (Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad) Siniora," Olmert said during a joint press conference with his Norwegian counterpart Jens Stoltenberg in Jerusalem. "We...

Regeneration of the Biblical Dead Seaby Leslie J. Sacks Amid the constant turmoil and angst boiling over in Israel and the West Bank, at the center of the Middle East, lies the Dead Sea. [3] This salt-laden desert sea is rapidly diminishing in size as its source, the Jordan River, dries up: the Syrians (via the Yarmuk, a source for the Jordan), Israelis and Jordanians all draw an ever-increasing amount of water from this biblical tributary. [1] We think of the Dead Sea as a tourist haven for spa treatments and beauty products, as a relief for psoriasis sufferers;...

There would be sweet Zionist vindication were the Dead Sea rehydration project to actually be implemented with full Jordanian, Palestinian and world partnership. After all, the vision of refilling the Dead Sea, using water from the Mediterranean, was floated back in Theodor Herzl's seminal 1902 Altneuland. True, Herzl envisioned the project for generating hydroelectric power, while today's updated version of his dream would call for channeling Red Sea water for desalination purposes. Yet there's no denying that the very notion captures the imagination and raises our hopes of peaceful cooperation belying the ever-rampant regional belligerence and boldly charting the mutually...

More than two dozen states have refused to fully comply with a sweeping and unprecedented White House request to turn over voter registration data, including sensitive information like partial Social Security numbers, party affiliation and military status. Overall, the states that have said they will not be complying at all with the Kobach commission's request represent over 30 percent of the nation's population. That could complicate any efforts to build a truly national voter file, although it remains unclear what the commission's ultimate goal is in collecting the data.

Fox News reports: A Russian warship entered the eastern Mediterranean Friday and was heading toward the area where two U.S. Navy destroyers launched missile strikes into Syria, Fox News has learned. The Russian frigate, Admiral Grigorovich RFS-494, crossed through the Bosphorus Strait “a few hours ago” from the Black Sea, according to a U.S. defense official. The Russian warship is now in the eastern Mediterranean steaming in the direction of the U.S. warships. The Admiral Grigorovich is armed with advanced Kalibr cruise missiles. “The Russian ship armed with cruise missiles Kalibr will visit the logistics base in Tartus, Syria,” the...

The Italian name for the caldera — Campi Flegrei, or “burning fields”— is apt. The 7.5-mile-wide cauldron is the collapsed top of an ancient volcano, formed when the magma within finally blew. Though half of it is obscured beneath the crystal blue waters of the Mediterranean, the other half is studded with cinder cones and calderas from smaller eruptions. And the whole area seethes with hydrothermal activity: Sulfuric acid spews from active fumaroles; geysers spout water and steam and the ground froths with boiling mud; and earthquake swarms shudder through the region, 125 miles south of Rome. And things seem...