Newly discovered stone tools drag dawn of Greek archaeology back by a quarter-million years

Rough stone tools dating back about 700,000 years, found in the Megalopolis area of Greece, shown here on a map of the country, will force scholars to reconsider the origins of Greek archaeology. The find, announced on June 1, could push the earliest record of human ancestors’ presence in Greece back by as much as 250,000 years. Map image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, credited to Lencer. Shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Rough stone tools dating back about 700,000 years, found in the Megalopolis area of Greece, shown here on a map of the country, will force scholars to reconsider the origins of Greek archaeology. The find, announced on June 1, could push the earliest record of human ancestors’ presence in Greece back by as much as 250,000 years. Map image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, credited to Lencer. Shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Rough stone tools dating back at least 300,000 years and found in the Megalopolis area of Greece (indicated on this map), could force scholars to reconsider the origins of Greek archaeology. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, credited to Lencer. Shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Deep in an open coal mine in southern Greece, researchers have discovered the antiquities-rich country’s oldest archaeological site, which dates to 700,000 years ago and is associated with modern humans’ hominin ancestors. The find, announced June 1, would drag the dawn of Greek archaeology back by as much as a quarter of a million years, although older hominin sites have been discovered elsewhere in Europe. The oldest, in Spain, dates to more than a million years ago.

Continue reading