Le Moustier’s 1920s artistic representation of Neanderthals.Stone age tool discoveries on the Greek island of Crete in 2010 indicate that man traveled the Mediterranean as early as 130,000 years ago rather than10,000 years ago as initially believed, according to Science magazine.
In an article entitled “Searching for a Stone Age Odysseus,” authors say that up until a decade ago, archaeologists assumed the adventurous travels of Odysseus, as reflected in Homer’s Odyssey, were the first ventures in the Mediterranean, believed to have taken place 10,000 years ago. Some others assumed that sea travel was a human endeavor that started in the Bronze Age.
However, excavators in 2010 claimed to have found stone tools in Crete dating back to at least 130,000 years, leading to assumptions that man traveled the seas as early as the Neanderthal stage of human development.
Neanderthals were an extinct species of the genus Homo that inhabited Europe, the Near East, Middle East, and Central Asia between 230,000 and 40,000 years ago during the late Middle Pleistocene and almost throughout the entire Upper Pleistocene.
Paleogenetic studies indicate a common origin for modern humans and Neanderthals, as well as hybridizations between the two hominin species, in at least two places and times: the Near East and Western Europe.
