The paleoanthropology of Greece |
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| Authors: | Katerina Harvati Eleni Panagopoulou Curtis Runnels |
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| Institution: | 1. Katerina Harvati is Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and from October 2009 Professor and Head of Paleoanthropology at the Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology and the Tübingen/Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoecology, University of Tübingen. Her research focuses on Neanderthal paleobiology and modern human origins. She has conducted extensive paleoanthropological research in Greece and East Africa.;2. Eleni Panagopoulou is the associate director of the Ephoreia of Palaeanthropology‐Speleology of the Greek Ministry of Culture. She specializes in Paleolithic technology and geoarcheology and has conducted archeological field work in Paleolithic and Mesolithic sites in Greece. She is currently the director of the Lakonis excavations in Southern Greece.;3. Curtis Runnels is Professor of Archaeology at Boston University and the Editor of the Journal of Field Archaeology. Since 1973, he has conducted field work connected with the early prehistory of Greece, Turkey, and Albania. |
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| Abstract: | European paleoanthropology and paleolithic archeology were already well‐established by the early twentieth century. The human fossil record from this continent is the longest known and perhaps most intensively studied. Nonetheless, important gaps remain to this day in the map of Pleistocene Europe; perhaps the most glaring of these is located in the southeastern corner of the continent. This region's record is critical for addressing questions about the course of human evolution in Europe because its geographic position lends it a dual role: on one hand, it encompasses a frequently hypothesized dispersal corridor from Africa into Europe for both archaic and early modern humans; on the other, as one of the three Mediterranean peninsulas, it acted as a refugium for plant, animal, and, most likely, human populations during glacial conditions. This article is a review of the paleoanthopological record of Greece, one of the least known in Europe. |
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| Keywords: | Balkans Apidima Petralona Lakonis Theopetra |
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