24 February, 2014 - 01:05 nickospoulianos
New Information on the
Petralona Skull Controversy
Ancient Origins has
recently presented the debate about the skull found in Petralona, Greece. This
debate has been continuing in the scientific community for more than half a century.
While the Greek government has tried to supress information regarding the skull
and disallow Dr Aris Poulianos and his collaborators from carrying out further
research, many scientists have spoken out in support. Read the background
to the discovery of a human skull in
Petralona, that has since been referred to as ‘Petralona Man’.
In a recent letter
to the Ministry of Culture in Greece, dated 13th August 2013, Dr. Kyung Sik Woo,
the South Korean President of the International Union of Speleology, a
UNESCO-recognized organization that represents cave scientists and cavers in
over 60 countries, wrote:
Petralona Cave, in
Chalkidiki, Greece, is an internationally significant archaeological and
paleontological site. Over the years there have been disputes about the age of
the hominin skeletons recovered from the cave. More recently I've heard
concerns about the condition and security of those materials, and that research
scientists, notably the primary scientists who studied the material and the
cave, Drs Aris and Nikolas Poulianos, are being refused access to the materials
and cave for further research. I am writing on behalf of the Union
Internationale de Speleology (UIS) to state and request the following be done
openly and transparently: Demonstrate that the materials are safe from
harm and establish a policy to assure their continued long-term security; use
documents and other information to prove the authenticity and provenance of the
materials; carefully and accurately document the physical condition of
the materials and any damage to establish a baseline from which their future
condition and the effects of any handling should be secured and future study
can be precisely compared and measured; and develop a policy that includes the
procedures, conditions, and limitations under which any qualified scientist can
access the materials for further study.
Professor Macie Henneberg,
Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology,
There is no doubt that all
aspects of the origins of humans and of their present-day life are of interest
to all mankind and that no effort should be spared in investigating them… The
cave of Petralona and related sites stand out as one of the foremost documents
of man's origins.
Some disputes are still
going on, but it is becoming ever clearer that the exact age of the Petralona
skull is very important concerning the investigation of human evolution for
many reasons.
It is a totally different
consideration whether the diversification of our subspecies (anthropological
types, phylae, or the commonly called races) took place thousands of years ago
or almost one million years ago. Until determining the age of the Petralona
skull at ~700,000 years, all human fossils before around 400,000 years were
considered as belonging to one species of Homo erectus, for example,
‘Beijing man’ (500,000 years), Java man (900,000 years), or other African
exemplars (around 1.1 million years).
Recapitulating the facts
and the surrounding framework concerning the Petralona skull, initially it was
considered by P. Kokkoros and A. Kanellis, Professors of Thessaloniki
University, that it represented an unstratified female Neanderthal of
~50,000-70,000 years ago. The same age was given in 1964 by two German researchers,
O. Sickenberg in Paleontology and E. Breitinger in Anthropology, the latter
declaring that Petralona man is “the first African out of Africa”.
When Dr Aris Poulianos had
the opportunity to study the skull, he immediately highlighted the European
traits of the male Petralona man. In 1968, and again from 1975 to 1983,
he excavated the Petralona cave, proving that the human skull belonged to a
well evident stratigraphic sequence (corresponding to the 11th layer), of
700,000 years old, presenting its own Paleolithic culture, not to mention the
oldest traces of fire ever kindled by a human being. The above mentioned
professor, O. Sickenberg, with the help of his pupil G. Shutt, indirectly
agreed with Dr Aris Poulianos concerning the date of 700,000 years before
passing away by the end of 1970.
The initial international
reaction was that no humans could exist at that age out of Africa in Europe.
Therefore, Dr Aris Poulianos’ theory was seen as exaggerated. However, during
the next decades due also to Petralona excavating data, other European
Palaeo-anthropological sites were proven to be of an analogous age (700,000
years), such as Mauer (Germany), Isernia (Italy) or Boxgrove (England). The
scientific “wind” started slowly to “blow” in favour of Poulianos.
Discoveries such as in Atapuerca (Spain), Ceprano (Italy) or Dmanissi
(Caucasus) reconfirmed the initial idea that in Europe the existence of humans
could be of 2 million years ago, if not even more. However, in Greece, it seems
that this news never arrived and that things became worse. That is why
Professor Macie Henneberg wrote in a letter to “Current Anthropology” (v. 29,
1988):
By the entrance to the
(Petralona Anthropological) museum there is a marble plaque describing the
purpose of the museum and stating that it was erected through Dr. Poulianos
efforts. His name has been crudely chiselled off (though parts of it are still
legible). There is no competent anthropologist supervising the site and the
museum at the moment… I do think that it is unethical to erase facts with a
chisel and to prevent competent researchers from continuing their work at the
site.
It is important herewith to
point out that after Dmanissi, a new “exodus like theory” emerged. First, Homo
habilis escaped (via deserts of Sinai) from Africa to Eurasia, where
finally it became extinct. On the contrary, in Africa, Homo habilis
evolved into Homo erectus, who in its turn spread to the rest of the
world, but finally disappeared there too. In Africa, however it evolved into Homo
heidelbergensis (an archaic form of Homo sapiens), defused all
over the world, but where it also disappeared. In Africa, Homo
heidelbergensis evolved into Homo sapiens where it supposedly
spread out of Africa 200,000 years ago.
Returning back to the
Petralona skull dating, two main questions arise: A. If any ancestral human
forms at the age of more than 700,000 years ago existed, preceding today’s
living populations (African, Asian, European), could the manifestation of their
diversification be much older than it was initially thought (and not only
10,000, 30,000 or 200,000 years ago)? Since it would be very improbable for
similar subspecific anthropological types to be repeated after almost a million
years towards the same direction, the hypothesis of the early diversification
(due to different adaptations) gains ground. B. Does it mean that all humans
have belonged to the same species for the last 700,000 years or
more?
The answer to the above
questions pass through the exact chronology of the Petralona skull (where most
of the Anthropological Association of Greece’s efforts were directed), as well
as establishing the degree of the Paleolithic culture.
On the other hand, a huge
damage of the skull itself was advanced by some scholars, a fact denounced by
R. Murill (USA), C. Stringer (
In closing is an excerpt
from Professor Macie Henneberg’s
letter:
Knowledge is among the most
precious resources of humanity. It should be freely pursued and shared
internationally…The Congress appeals to the international community of scholars
to make every possible effort to protect the invaluable evidence of human
origins and to enable researchers with years of local experience to continue
their work in the spirit of academic freedom and to the benefit of human
knowledge.
- See more
at:
http://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology-opinion-guest-authors/new-information-petralona-skull-controversy-001380#sthash.hlTIKyAe.dpuf