Cyprus-Forum.com

[phoenix]

Some of the earliest artefacts from the Northern pediment are over 400k old - and pre-date humans. They were more than likely created by homo erectus. - they mainly consist of what are called Levalloisian implements - tools created by flaking flint. There's also a record of a Chellio-Acheulian hand axe being found in the same strata - the Ayos Epiktitos terrace. I've personally found a number of these implements at the top of the slope above Ayos Yioryos chapel on the coast road near Orga.

How would Homo erectus have got to Cyprus?

Were they sophisticated enough to make rafts . . . I thought they didn't achieve much beyond lighting fires and flint tools?
(bit like some of close neighbours today )

[devil]

I think you are confusing things. Acheulian artifacts are unknown in Cyprus, where man was unknown until at least 90,000 years later in the last stone age. There are ample signs of flint knapping in many parts of Cyprus, e.g., Khirokitia. This era was divided into the pre-pottery (aceramic) and pottery (ceramic) periods, the time of clay pottery being used for anything other than figurines, starting c. 6000 BCE.

Whereas it is true that "hand axes" were used by paleoolithic man (H. sapiens and H.neanderthalensis), H. erectus did not have fashioned tools. The paleolithic era started c 100,000 BCE and died out by 8500 BCE.

There are no proven traces of man or pre-humans in Cyprus before ~8500 BCE, although it is supposed that man arrived between 12000 and 10000 BCE but in very small numbers.

Levallois flint knapping is known to be very ancient in W. Europe, dating from the start of the Lower Paleolithic era, but it didn't reach the Levant until the Upper Paleothic era, probably at the start of the Protoneolithic period, ie at the time H. sapiens was just beginning the change from hunter-gatherer to herder-farmer.

[StuartN]

Thanks for the info Devil. Perhaps we could meet for a Geo/Archaeo outing sometime?

Some examples of the type of tool I mentioned (although not Cypriot) can be found at http://www.beloit.edu/~museum/logan/pal ... ritain.htm