Coastal Paleogeography of the Central and Western Mediterranean during the Last 125,000 Years and Its Archaeological Implications

Shackleton, Judith C.; Andel, Tjeerd H. van; Runnels, Curtis

doi:10.1179/009346984791535476

Cited by 96 publications

(37 citation statements)

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“…Owing to this common origin, our genetic data argue in favour of a human introduction, which is also congruent with the early trade routes that have been established in eastern civilizations since the Bronze age (De Marinis and Masseti, 2003;Costa, 2004). Moreover, a common eastern origin through natural colonization across land masses seems to be unlikely because of the high bathymetry of the Mediterranean Sea: large islands (Corsica, Sardinia and Crete) are surrounded by deep marine pits and only coastal islands were connected to the continents during glacial ages (Shackleton et al, 1984).…”

Section: Colonization Of Mediterranean Islandsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogeography of the weasel (Mustela nivalis) in the western-Palaearctic region: combined effects of glacial events and human movements

et al. 2010

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Section: Colonization Of Mediterranean Islandsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogeography of the weasel (Mustela nivalis) in the western-Palaearctic region: combined effects of glacial events and human movements

et al. 2010

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“…Shackleton et al (1984) examined the broad topography of the western Mediterranean to evaluate what areas of the continental shelf would have potentially been exposed for subaerial vegetation and fauna during glacial low sea levels, and Flemming et al (2003) provide a general review of known submerged prehistoric sites in the Mediterranean. More detailed studies of the Straits of Gibraltar have shown that at no time were they closed during the Pleistocene, and the sea channel would have remained open to a width of at least 10 km.…”

Section: Western Mediterraneanmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The archaeological implications of these changes have been recognised for a long time and early work used simple maps of present-day bathymetry to explore their impact on a range of issues, including the varying visibility of marine resources at different periods in the Pleistocene, the differential preservation of coastal archaeological sites, the constraints on human dispersal imposed by the creation and submergence of land bridges, changes in shoreline ecology, and alterations more generally in the palaeoeconomic potential of coastlines following the extension or contraction of coastal territory (Bailey, 1978(Bailey, , 1983Richardson, 1978;Shackleton et al, 1984;Shackleton and Van Andel, 1986). Early attempts were also made to explore the nature of the submerged landscape in more detail using remote sensing techniques (Van Andel and Lianos, 1984a,b), and to excavate underwater sites, most famously the Mesolithic site of Tybrind Vig in Denmark (Andersen, 1980, see also Masters and Flemming, 1983).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Archaeology of the continental shelf: Marine resources, submerged landscapes and underwater archaeology

Bailey

Flemming

2008

Quaternary Science Reviews

312

120

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We provide a critical review of the evidence for the long-term use of marine resources and coastal environments in human evolution and later development. We emphasise the importance of the coastal archaeological record in understanding patterns of human settlement and dispersal and draw attention to the large potential biases introduced by the destructive or obscuring effects of Pleistocene sea-level change. We note that lowered sea levels have been the norm for most of the Pleistocene and that periods of high sea level have been too short-lived to provide other than a fragmentary coastal record and one that is beset with ambiguities and uncertainties. We examine the geological processes of coastal uplift and underwater preservation that may help to mitigate these biases. Coastlines elevated by isostatic and tectonic processes, or with very steep offshore drop-offs at plate boundaries, are important in providing a potential window into coastal landscapes and archaeology formed during periods of lowered sea level. However, we conclude that the opportunities afforded by these geological factors are too limited to obviate the need for underwater exploration. We review the evidence now available from submerged landscapes across the Africa-Eurasia interface from the Atlantic coastlines of Northwest Europe to the southern Red Sea. We show that geomorphological conditions for the preservation of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data are commonly present, that much material has already been discovered, and that new techniques, technologies and projects are providing the momentum for a rapidly expanding field of investigation. The results do not simply add to what we already know from sites on land, but are likely to produce qualitatively different evidence for coastal adaptations and landscapes that have no analogue on present-day coastlines. We note the strong probability that many coastal landscapes exposed at lowered sea level provided relatively fertile and productive refugia for plants, land mammals and humans at a time when increased aridity would have reduced or deterred hinterland occupation. We conclude that underwater investigation is essential if hypotheses of early human adaptation and dispersal are to be fully tested.

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“…The possibility of Mediterranean crossings has been considered before (e.g., Bednarik 1999), but the evidence for them has been consid ered as unconvincing (e.g., Shackleton et al 1984;Bailey and Carrion 2008;Straus 2001;Villa 2001;Broodbank 2006;2013: 91-96). A reconsideration of Mediterranean sea-crossings is prompted not only by new evidence from the Greek islands, but by the discovery of LP artifacts at Mata Menge and other sites in the Soa Basin on Flores in southeast Asia that may have resulted from sea-crossings in southeast Asia as much as 1 myr (Morwood et al 1998;Morwood 2001;Bednarik 2001a;2003;Brumm et al 2010).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Early Palaeolithic on the Greek Islands?

Runnels

2014

JMA

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Humans evolved in Africa and colonizedEurasia in successive adaptive radiations, establishing themselves in Europe ca. one million years ago. It is assumed that these dispersals were by land through southwest Asia, or secondarily across the Strait o f Gibraltar, because early hominins lacked the cognitive faculties and technical skills needed to cross the open Mediterranean. Such crossings are thought to have occurred only at the end of the Pleistocene, after ca. 11,000years ago. This reasoning is challenged by the presence o f early Palaeolithic artifacts on the Greek islands, suggesting that hominins made sea-crossings more than 130,000years ago, and indicating that the Mediterranean-and by implication other seas-were at times open roads rather than barriers to hominin dispersals.

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Coastal Paleogeography of the Central and Western Mediterranean during the Last 125,000 Years and Its Archaeological Implications

Cited by 96 publications

References 1 publication

Phylogeography of the weasel (Mustela nivalis) in the western-Palaearctic region: combined effects of glacial events and human movements

Phylogeography of the weasel (Mustela nivalis) in the western-Palaearctic region: combined effects of glacial events and human movements

Archaeology of the continental shelf: Marine resources, submerged landscapes and underwater archaeology

Early Palaeolithic on the Greek Islands?

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