Showing posts with label Theopetra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theopetra. Show all posts

March 28, 2010

World's oldest technical project in Kalambaka

My translation of parts of the article in the Vima which appears to be the most informative source for the new discoveries:
In Kalambaka, the most ancient technical project

The most ancient technical project of Greece, probably in the world, is found in the Theopetra cave of Kalambaka and is 23,000 years old. It is a stone wall that had been constructed in the entrance of the cave, blocking its entrance by 2/3. This construction -stone pile to be precise- was studied and dated by the "Democritus" center, which presented yesterday the results. The age coincides precisely with the coldest period of the last glacial age, suggesting that the Paleolithic inhabitants of the cave had constructed this wall at its entrance to protect themselves from the harsh cold of the times.

Remnants of fire, tools made of pyritolithus (?) and quartz, early jewellery from deerteeth, stone implements and ceramics have come to light in the prehistoric cave of Theopetra during the excavations conducted by Dr. Nina Kyparissi-Apostolika for 25 years, ephor of Palaeoanthropology and Speleology of southern Greece of the Ministry of Culture. Human skeletons have been rarely discovered. On the contrary, there are many animal bones from all periods during which the cave was in use. Of interest are finds from the Mesolithic age related to ceramic production and cultivation. There is barley, wheat, and lentil in wild (Paleolithic age) form, but also as cultivars, which suggests that these people had discovered cultivation as the result of millennia-long efforts and not as the result of population movements from the Near East.