How Old Is the Human Presence on Cyprus?

Abstract

Albert Ammerman's contributions to archaeology are substantial, but his comments about Cyprus may mislead the reader (“Exploring the prehistory of Europe, in a few bold leaps,” J. Bohannon, News Focus, 13 July, p. 188). Current studies on this Mediterranean island have indeed indicated a human presence much earlier than previously believed. As the article notes, research by Peltenburg and others has pushed back the island's Neolithic presence to ~8200 calibrated B.C.E. Ammerman suggests that his sites are approximately 12,000 years old and are the remains of seafaring pre-Neolithic hunters and gatherers. Whether or not aeolianite dunes would have made suitable camps, we commend Ammerman for examining ephemeral sites that all too often have been ignored. However, he believes that these are “the oldest evidence of seafaring in the Mediterranean,” a claim presently based only on artifactual data, and as Peltenburg points out, “independent evidence” is needed to confirm their antiquity. An early human presence on Cyprus has been well established at Akrotiri Aetokremnos for nearly two decades ([1][1]). It is thus no surprise that there may be other sites dating to this time period, and many of us hope that Ammerman's sites are as old as he claims. But until this can be confirmed by defensible dating of materials in good context, these sites should not enter the literature as examples of a pre-Neolithic presence on Cyprus. 1. 1.[↵][2]1. A. Simmons , Faunal Extinction in an Island Society (Klewer/Plenum, New York, 1999). [1]: #ref-1 [2]: #xref-ref-1-1 View reference 1. in text