While there are many prehistoric sites across Greece that show that human ancestors hunted elephants and hippos roughly 280,000 to 700,000 years ago, the oldest site brings the date of hominin presence back by 250,000 years.
Prehistoric Sites in Greece
According to Live Science, both the Hellenic Ministry of Culture & Sports as well as the American School of Classical Studies at Athens collaborated in a half-decade-long excavation to learn more about Megalopolis sites.
The Megalopolis Basin across Arcadia carries one of Greece's biggest lignite mines. Though archaeologists have long been familiar with how prehistoric fossils could be found at the site, there has been minimal targeted excavation conducted. This is where the recent collaborative efforts enter the picture.
Live Science adds that mining efforts showed that there were five other sites within the base. Paleoanthropologist Katerina Harvati from Germany's University of Tübingen, who is the co-project lead, explains that this exposed the sediments bearing fossils to deeper depths. This, in turn, revealed remains that were even older.
The Tripotamos 4 site was roughly 400,000 years old and had a large stone tool concentration. It also carried evidence of new stone methods compared to other older areas. The Choremi 7, on the other hand, is the most recent site and dates back roughly 280,000 years. It yielded stone tools and deer bones that had cut marks on them.
Such prehistoric sites are vital to knowing Lower Paleolithic technological developments, as noted in a statement by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture & Sport.
In the 450,000-year-old Marathousa 2 site, specifically, researchers found proof that human ancestors killed and possibly fed on hippos. This was inferred as hippo skeleton parts were found to have cut marks from stone tools. Another nearby area, Marathousa 1, reveals proof that ancient elephants were also butchered.
700,000-year-old Evidence of Humans in Greece
The team found the oldest prehistoric site in Greece, which dates as far back as 700,000 years ago, Business Insider reports. This is the Kyparissia 4 site, which was found roughly 230 feet below the surface. It is considered the oldest prehistoric site in Greece, dating from the Lower Paleolithic era.
They found several stone tools and remains that belonged to extinct hippo, deer, rhino, macaque, and elephant species.
Live Science notes that when glaciers filled most of Europe during the Ice Age that took place around 300,000 to 500,000 years ago, the area would have been void of ice. Harvati explains that their research on the basin's paleoenvironmental reconstruction shows that the basin would have served as a refugium while the strong conditions of the Ice Age persisted. This would have allowed animals, plants, and hominins to survive the extreme conditions.
Because of the remarkable preservation conditions in the basin, the team gets to recover stone tools, fossils, and even various remains of plants, small animals, insects, and wood.
The basin has offered vital evidence that spans nearly the entire mid-Pleistocene. This makes the basin a vital discovery, considering how southeastern Europe remained quite unexplored during such times.
Harvati, along with co-directors Eleni Panagopoulou from the Greek Culture Ministry and Panagiotis Karkanas from the American School of Classical Studies, explain their excitement about reporting the finding as it helps in the understanding of hominin migrations across Europe and human evolution as a whole.
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