Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 13-04-05
CONTENTS
[01] Remains of eight Neanderthals discovered in Mani cave
[01] Remains of eight Neanderthals discovered in Mani cave
ANA-MPA -- Remains of eight Neanderthals including two youths from the
Middle Paleolithic times were recently discovered by a group of Greek
and foreign scientists in the cave of Kalamakia, in the Mani peninsula
of the Peloponnese.
The results were published in the Journal of Human Evolution by a
team led by professor Katerina Harvati from Germany's Eberhard Karls
University. The multinational excavation team includes two members of
the Ephorate of Palaeoanthropology and Speliology of Southern Greece,
under the Ministry of Culture, Andreas Darlas and Eleni Psathi.
The cave's findings are dated between 100,000 and 39,000 years before
the present era and lie in several layers, some of them 20 meters
deep. Initial excavations were held between 1993 and 2006 by a team that
included the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.
Remains found by Dr Harvati's team include 14 bones - some leg sections
with toothmarks on them - 10 teeth, and a skull section. The analysis
results correspond to the faunal and palynological, or particle,
analyses of the site and show the residents there had a combined meat
and vegetable diet.
The discovery, the researchers said in their report, "significantly
expand the Neanderthal sample known from Greece. Together with the human
specimens from Lakonis and Apidima, the Kalamakia human remains add to
the growing evidence of a strong Neanderthal presence in the Mani region
during the Late Pleistocene."
(Archive photo from excavations at the Theopetra cave in the Central
Greek city of Trikala)
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