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Updated:, 2024.12.14 
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 cBCE 3000–1150 ᴷH•ãrꞋrian-Kʰa•tᵊ•tūꞋshan (Kit•imꞋ); cBCE 1450 confederated with, then eclipsed by Tzi•yᵊd•ōnꞋi•an-TzūrꞋi•ans, finally eclipsed by Pūlossians Mediterranean Maritime Trade Routes |
Kᵊrē•të (Crete)—This island in the eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Greece south of Thæra, is key to understanding the origins and development of the first people to populate both the planet in general and the Mediterranean coastlines in particular. These earliest humans, centered in ancient Anatolia (modern western Turkey) built a superculture and became the world's first superpower, navigating the Mediterranean Sea. The Egyptians knew these as the "Sea Peoples". One of the 1940s CE European-supremacists, "Indiana Jones"-style explorers (i.e. early arts-degreed archaeologists), unable to identify this "mysterious" people who created their pottery and highly advanced land and naval architecture, simply made up a name out of the blue: "Minoans"! These people were neither "Ancient Aliens" nor "Hittites". They were ancient Anatolian NëꞋshan language speakers, transliterated into MSH Tzūran-Kᵊna•anꞋ Semitic of Tzūr & Tzi•yᵊd•ōnꞋ; exonym Phoenician) as
𐤊𐤕𐤉 ! They called themselves 𒄩𒀜𒌅𒊭.
 LiveSci Ghose (Img Rainer Lesniewski via Getty Images) 2024 00350x200.png "ttt") |
 LiveSci Ghose (Img Rainer Lesniewski via Getty Images) 2024 11920x1080.png "Click to enlarge"){kind=small} Pangaea (Anatolia-to-Greece Drift labeled (Img: Rainer Lesniewski via Getty Images) |
For today's increasingly endangered pragmatic realist, the Ta•na״khꞋ description of ã•dãmꞋ (humankind) and the emergence of khaū•ãhꞋ (womankind) in Gan ÆdꞋën, like the Ta•na״khꞋ accounts of the Flood, the Yᵊtzi•ãhꞋ and many similar "miracles", were accounts that were real and true—to the best of local astrologist/astronomer, proto-scientists & scribes knowledge to that time.
Like legitimate reports today, humans will always face the same constraints of not knowing the next day's science (much less millennia into the future), or consequently better understood evidence and facts. Further, these accounts were relative to a somewhat localized geographic area before the advent of telephones, TV or the internet. News was limited to riding an animal or sailing, walking and foibles of retelling stories.
The loreal core of these religious beliefs is also corroborated in the similar, yet contrasting, sacred accounts of other ancient peoples, with differing loreal traditions. "Fundamentalist" literal interpretations promulgate caveman physicomorphic (or animist) descriptions—and must, therefore, be interpreted not simplistically—and physicomorphically—literal, but rather as lore-based tradition (i.e. beliefs, religion) communicating core principles. It is the principles, not the literal details, that must be guarded and promulgated.
The popular Latin-based mille-=1,000 (e.g., millennium, pl. millennia) is deprecated in favor of consistency with the Greek-based metric standard: kilo-=1,000; e.g., kiloyear. Kiloyears ago then becomes Ka.
Some scientific papers confuse the distinction between abbreviations for "years" and "years ago"; both sometimes abbreviated similarly (Ga, Ma & Ka ). Further, some scientific papers tend to confuse readers whether "Ma" is abbreviated for (popular) millennia or (scientific-metric) megayears. For continuity and clarity, in this paper I will express the "a" in these terms as ago.
Is DërꞋëkh יְהוָׂה!Reality is DërꞋëkh יְהוָׂה as best ancient knowledge and technology limited the ancient world in understooding it. Avᵊrã•hãmꞋ, Yi•sᵊr•ã•eilꞋ, Mōsh•ëhꞋ, Hi•lælꞋ ha-Za•qænꞋ, ha-Nã•siꞋ, RibꞋi Yᵊho•shuꞋa Bën-Yo•seiphꞋ (and Einstein, for that matter), relied on their most advanced knowledge of their time—not any mystics or clergy of mortals on the planet! No supernatural-oriented clergy or "divinity" degree type anywhere on the planet is even headed in the right direction! Our Omni-scient Creator of our universe is Perfectly Nature-al!!! That's the True definition of Logical and Scientific!!! Consult Dᵊvãr•imꞋ 30.11-14 (& 15-20); Yi•rᵊmᵊyãhꞋū 31.33; 31.26-36 and Yō•ælꞋ 2.23-4.3. Follow the Law of the Omniscient, not any mortal(s)! Become Enlightened, then Enlighten! Become a Bën- or Bat-Ōr ("son or daughter of Light", the only proper definition of a Jew), instead of remaining a Bën- or Bat-KhōꞋshëkh (son or daughter of darkness)!
When one observes gullible humans believing in physicomorphic powers of mystical incenses and aromas, colored lights, sparkly rocks, occult symbols, supernatural chants or mysterious handwavium, it is clear that evolution has also passed along to our day a very large percentage of every race of early Hominids who lack sufficient desire and commitment to develop their nëphꞋësh to relate to their Creator, יְהוָׂה (Existant)!
Until one at least relates to this from a natural (nature-al), scientific, perspective, (s)he grossly misunderstands and perverts the best account that ancient, written-language era proto-scientists were capable of understanding to pass down to us.
Geophysicists & geochemists collaboratively report that later, in the Paleozoic Era as life was evolving on earth, the planet's geography was dramatically different from today and undergoing imperceptibly slow, yet dramatic, continuing change. The sole supercontinent, Pangea, dominated the planet, surrounded by the Panthalassic Superocean.
Scientists labeled the northern half of Pangea EurAsia (Europe & Asia or, according into its later components Laurentia, Laurasia and Siberia) while the southern half of Pangea was labeled Gondwana, which comprised the Americas (north & south), Africa and the Near Middle East, including ancient Anatolia (Turkey), Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Arabia, Crete & Cyprus.
Dealing with such an immense span of time, with its consequent changes in measurements (e.g., Ga, Ma, Ka), the enormity of certain segments of evolution
From the 1ˢᵗ emergence of life on planet earth (≈3.7 Ga) to the evolution of earliest discovered Homo sapiens (say ≈.009 Ga) is (3.7 Ga minus .009 Ga =) ≈3.691 Ga; the total period of evolution to the emergence of humans.
From the emergence of the earliest life on planet earth (3.7 Ga) to the Continental Crunch (≈.0412 Ga ) was 3.7 Ga minus ≈.0412 Ga; yields 3.6588 Ga.
Evolution from the emergence of life (3.7 Ga) through and separation of the Continental Rift up to the Continental Crunch meeting of Eastern Gonwana with Eurasia ≈.027 Ga (≈270 Ma): 3.7 Ga - .027 Ga = 3.43 gigayears of evolution—the last 3.43 gigayears (92.9%) of which were parallel, yet separate and distinct! (3.43 Ga ÷ 3.961 Ga = 92.9%.)
3.7 Ga - .009 Ga = 3.691 Ga.
92.9% of human evolution occurred even before the Pangean Rift (≈.270 Ga, i.e. 270 Ma)!!!
Even if life had only emerged once, by the time of the Continental Rift life had certainly evolved and spread throughout the Panthalassic Superocean and both sub-continents of Pangea. From the time of the Continental Rift, only those extremely early forms of speciated life contributed to the continuing evolution—that culminated in many species of pre-Continental Crunch Homo sapiens. Scientists note this contrast between earliest Gondwanan (popularly African) vs Eurasian Homo sapiens.
& Gondwana Continents)Scientists estimate that the "Nᵊti•yãhꞋ ha-Gᵊdōl•ãhꞋ" gave birth to the universe ≈13.787±0.020 Ga. However, planet earth wasn't formed until 9.287 gigayears later; i.e. ≈4.5 Ga.
Scientists demonstrate that "just a handful of 'forgotten' biochemical reactions are needed to transform simple geochemical compounds into the complex molecules of life… our research yielded an important piece of evidence: only eight new reactions, all reminiscent of common biochemical reactions, are needed to bridge geochemistry and biochemistry".
"Scientists think that by 4.3 [Ga], Gondwana & EurAsia, Pangea may have developed conditions suitable to support life. The oldest known fossils, however, are only 3.7 gigayears old. During that 600 megayears window, life may have emerged repeatedly, only to be [sometimes only partially & selectively] snuffed out by catastrophic collisions with asteroids and comets." When scientists concede that life itself may have "emerged repeatedly", at different times and in different locations of Pangea, then it seems impossible to hold that all humans could only have emerged from one particular mating, at one instant in several megayears, in one location. This implies that more than one line of evolution likely led to parallel, yet separate and distinct, lines of simian species, each of which were equally likely to produce eventual human species: at least one set of pre-human ancestors in Gondwana (e.g., Africa, Middle-East & Anatolia )—entirely separated from the EurAsian set of pre-human ancestors by ≈4,200 km (≈2,600 mi) of open Tetrys Ocean; geographically separate and differentiated from the set of pre-human ancestors in Eurasia & Greece, that led to Eurasian humans, e.g., [EurAsian-]Neanderthals).
Because arts-degreed archaeologists & anthropologists just aren't capable of doing legitimate science, collaboration with geophysicists, geochemists and the other hard sciences has been lacking until very recently. Arts-degrees do not pretend to provide science-education, leaving their graduates unable to even grasp the sciences involved when scientists try to explain to them. So scientists are now fixing long-held arts-degreed errors. Anthropologists and most archaeologists still seem to resist even the corrections of geophysicists and geochemists and other scientists. They remain in denial of the time constraints imposed by continental plate tectonics & intercontinental drift across the planet that formed today's Middle East after of gigayears of ancient Anatolia (modern Turkey) being on the opposite side of the planet from Greece—despite the ≈4,200 km (≈2,600 mi) separation of open Tetrys Ocean during the first 93% of our evolutionary history! The last sliver of that time was particularly significant because it was during this time that the immediate ancestors of earliest humans, the Haplorrhines, evolved—in each of the entirely still ocean-separated continents!!!
Researchers of genetics and biologists examining the evolution of pre-Neolitic Homo sapiens and civilizations haven't been cross-talking enough with professors of geotechtonics, geodynamics and other scientists; while, until the very recent advent of PhD's in Archaeology Science (and perhaps History Science), arts-degreed historians and explorer-archaeologists, with few exceptions, were educationally unprepared to work in the staples of day-to-day scientific methodology. Yet, the periods under recent study increasingly depend upon data from the time our earliest ancestors: the emergence of the primate clade (euarchontoglire)—≈88–100 Ma! During the interim the surface of the earth has passed through major geological, planet-wide mutations that allow only a select few geoscientists to show how . Yet, these great changes in the face of our planet haven't been examined in studying the origins of civilizations.
Practically the entire world still labors under the woefully ignorant assumption that Turkey has always been part of ancient Europe, a neighbor of Greece; with mutual overland terrestrial access to either country from the other. Recent science (especially recent geophysical and geochemical work in plate tectonics) has demonstrated that the geophysical evidence implies at least 2 parallel, yet separate and distinct, continental platforms, each supporting parallel, yet separate and distinct evolutionary lines of human ancestral evolution, which led to at least 2 distinct speciations of the simian ancestors of all humans.
"The origin of the hominines is among the most hotly debated topics in paleoanthropology. The traditional view, ever since Darwin, holds that hominines and hominins supposedly originate in Africa, where the earliest hominins are found and where all currently recognized extant non-human hominines (supposedly) live.
Geophysicists and geochemists generally cite Douwe et al., who demonstrated that the bulk of origins of life on earth and the evolutionary process spanning from ≈3.7 Ga, to ≈0.27 Ga (≈270 Ma, producing the earliest autochthonous humans on ancient Anatolia, Crete & Africa, originated on opposite sides of the equator, separated from Greece & Europe by ≈4,200 km (≈2,600 mi) of open Tetrys Ocean! These two parallel evolutionary lines remained separate until the two parallel, separate and distinct lines of newly evolved simians could finally meet each other following the "Continental Crunch" of ≈41.2 Ma. This approximately 230 megayears of initial separation certainly embedded hard evolutionary variations on separate parallel evolutionary tracks, compared to the proportionately mere 32 megayears of possible inter-mating, that led to the varied and contrasting nascent humans from each continent ≈9 Ma.
More recently a European origin has been proposed, based on the phylogenetic analysis of late Miocene apes from Europe and Central Anatolia. The fossils described here attest to a lengthy history of hominines in Europe, with multiple taxa in the eastern Mediterranean known for at least 2.3 Ma,"
 0350x385.png "Crete-Turkey-Greece 260Ma (Stampfli)") |
 1200x1320.png "Click to enlarge"){kind=small} Crete-Turkey-Greece 260 Ma (graphic: Prof. Gérard Stampfli, Professeur Honoraire, Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Lausanne, Switzerland) |
Scientists (not to mention literalist-fundamentalist physicomorphist "Biblical" religionists) are openly conflicted, on the one hand arguing that there may be countless instances of spontaneous life on other planets in other solar systems in our own galaxy, far more in other galaxies. Yet, "Biblicists" (literalist physicomorphists) and some scientists also argue that there could be only one instance of the emergence of Homo sapiens on planet earth—despite Homo sapiens sharing the enormous head-start of life and diversity of evolved life on earth.
My research focuses on where evolution originated in two countries now conjoined, ancient Anatolia (modern western Turkey & Crete) arrived from opposite ends of earth's last supercontinent, Pangea, which amalgamated from earlier continental plates within the last 2 billion years. Pangea is where life first emerged, began to evolve and spread across the early planet "Before Pangaea began to disintegrate, what we know today as Nova Scotia was attached to what seems like an unlikely neighbour: Morocco. Newfoundland was attached to Ireland and Portugal.
"About 250 million years ago, Pangaea was still stitched together, yet to be ripped apart by the geological forces that shaped the continents as we know them today.
"For many years, geologists have pondered how all the pieces originally fit together, why they came apart the way they did and how they ended up spread across the globe."
 Permian-Triassic Pangea (Zhu ) Edited to show origins of Anatolia (Turkey), Crete, Lebanon, Cyprus & Israel vs Greece |
While Gondwanan western Turkey & Crete (on the Asian continental plate) and Greece (on the European continental plate) are now conjoined sharing land borders (the former subducting under the latter), recent findings of geophysicists teamed with geochemists indicate that these two originated from opposite sides of the planet during the initial 4 billion years of evolution!
Further, as Koppes mentioned above, "life may have emerged repeatedly". If life itself is scientifically accepted as plausible, then certainly parallel, yet separate and distinct, emergences of Homo sapiens is vastly more likely than new emergences of life itself! Consequently, the evolution of human ancestors on the Gondwanan continent most likely evolved and developed in parallel, yet separate and distinct, from the EurAsian (LaurAsian) Continent at the opposite side of the planet, with a huge oceanic separation between them for almost the entire period of evolution before Anatolia & Crete finally moved into the neighborhood of Greece & Europe! Ergo, human ancestors of "Out-of-Anatolia" humans (Crete & the African continent trailed along behind in their transoceanic drift train).
In Pangean Gondwana and EurAsia (aka LaurAsia) were located on opposite sides of the planet, separated by the single vast Panthalassic Superocean.
Understanding Ta•na״khꞋ-era Mediterranean Basin peoples, civilizations and seafaring depends upon properly identifying the autochthonous Kᵊrē•tëns and their original relationships with neighboring lands—which geophysicists regard as the most astounding, complex and difficult to understand on the planet.
These factors defined the peoples around the ancient Mediterranean Basin coastlines, their evolution, and determined the development of their respective civilizations. If I can even open this Pandora's Box—the evolution of the physical planet paralleled against the evolution of humans—a little more than it is, perhaps it will reveal new perspectives that are logical (science-compatible; i.e. compatible with the Omni-scient Creator of Ta•na״khꞋ) to further explore and refine.
≈003.7 Ga (≈3,700 Ma)—Emergence(s) of 1ˢᵗ life (likely multiple geographically dispersed) on planet earth.
≈000.280 Ga (≈280 Ma—Therapsids (proto-mammals, with limbs beneath the body)
≈003.7 Ga (≈3,700 Ma)—Emergence(s) of 1ˢᵗ life (likely multiple geographically dispersed) on planet earth.
≈000.280 Ga (≈280 Ma—Therapsids (proto-mammals, with limbs beneath the body)
≈000.270 Ga (≈270 Ma)—Pangean Rift: Pangean Africa+ (Anatolia, Crete, Cyprus, Mediterranean east coast, Africa & Arabia) rifts away from Pangean South America; Transoceanic Drift across the Palæotethys Ocean (now the Atlantic Ocean & Mediterranean Sea). By this time, the ancestors of humans had already been determined—10 Megayears earlier (the Therapsids)! to the earliest pro-simians (e.g., lemurs).
"Survival of the newest: the mammals that survive mass extinctions aren’t as “boring” as scientists thought"
 earthsciences-hju-hk 20241109 0350x225.png "ttt") |
 earthsciences-hju-hk 20241109 2500x1600.png "Click to enlarge"){kind=small} Planet Earth only 9 Megayears of pre-hominid evolution before when the "Cradle of Civilization" first came in contact with Eur-Asia (at the "Continental Crunch") & 41 Ma before Earliest Homo sapiens. |
At this point, Yi•sᵊr•ã•eil´ (IS), Tzur & Syria (TzSy), Anatolia (A) & Mesopotamia (M), together the "Cradle of Civilization" (back in Gondwana, Yi•sᵊr•ã•eil´ was at the heart, the center). These were all located on the Arabian tectonic plate. But they had long been sunken underwater—for millions of years far detached, under the sea, from Eurasia. It appears that these didn't surface until the Great Crunch, ≈44Ma, not long, in these time periods, before the earliest humans.
"The early Eocene (∼56–48 Myr ago) is characterized by high CO2 estimates (1,200–2,500 ppmv) and elevated global temperatures (∼10°C–16°C higher than modern)… climate models in the Deep-time Model Intercomparison Project (DeepMIP)… results suggest that changes to the land sea mask (relative to modern) in the models may be responsible for the simulated increases in precipitation to the north of Eocene Africa. There is an increase in precipitation over equatorial and West Africa and associated drying over northern Africa as CO² rises."
 0350x385.png "58-40 Ma Eocene Africa (Williams 2022)") |
 1441x1584.png "Click to enlarge"){kind=small} 58-40 Ma Eocene Africa. Main boundary conditions changed in DeepMIP simulations, where top row = PI and bottom row = early Eocene: (b) topography/bathymetry and (c) vegetation expressed as megabiomes where 1 = tropical, 2 = warm-temperate, 3 = temperate, 4 = boreal, 5 = savanna, 6 = grassland and 7 = desert. |
The DeepMIP model (col. b) depicts the waters separating the African continent from the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys ≈58–40 Ma. A couple of points from the European continent toward which they've been drifting for eons appears at the extreme top center and right. It appears clear from the relative water depths to the north vs south of the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys (being deeper behind its drift than its destination) rotation around a pivot point roughly equating to today's Gibralter & Maghreb—clearly >40 megaannia (pre-human) earlier than dated by Broodbank (≈BCE 4k–1k); and subduction beneath the European continent beneath what is now the Mediterranean Sea, had already begun.
This indicates a further complication in human evolution: triple (rather than merely double) ancestral parallel lines from both Gondwanan & EurAsian Pangea at a time when both sets of simians neighbored each other near the Pangean equator (and all simians dispersed and speciated throughout Pangea to the extent they were able to adapt to the various climates)—more parallel lines of simian ancestors of the first humans, separated by the Great Pangean Rift in pre-human times.
Moreover, the Maghreb-Gibralter pivot point also likely represents the Post-Crunch (≈41.2 Ma) earliest encounters between Pangean and EurAsian human-ancestral simians, which indicates an even more complex ancestral system, beyond 2 separate parallel lines, from simians to earliest humans. This erases the troubled enigma of how early humans populated landmasses both north & south of the Mediterranean before humans had seaworthy ships. Humans simply evolved on, and were always indigenous to, lands both north & south of the Mediterranean!
The, mainly religious, belief that all humans evolved from one pairing of 1ˢᵗ humans is contradicted by all of the facts. A fortiori, the paltry evidence touted by its advocates has always been massaged by superficial religious axe-wielders of those who knew that the Biblical story is like their notion of god: simplistic and uncomplicated.
New scientific research corroborating my research is being published almost weekly, faster than I can adjust proper chronological sequencing of the numerous effects on the respective cultures, empires and economies (with their respective web pages and a cascading effect on related web pages). Consequently, web page "construction sites" indicating my analysis is on the right track continue to multiply faster than I can incorporate and edit the information.
This ever-mounting evidence suggests that "cousin" ancestor-mammals of the isolated subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys would be likely to evolve into "cousin" Hominids on the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys. Moreover, the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Hominids would likely show a "2nd cousin" relation to the South American Hominids, and be genetically less like distant Hominids from the European continent. This effect would be expected to result in a genetic distinction in earliest peoples of related Pelopónnese, Cretans and Anatolians from Greeks and other peoples of European origin.
This distinction could also be significantly bolstered by the proximity and interactions (developing a distinct pre-culture and pre-civilization) among the mammalian inhabitants indigenous to the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys at the time of the rift from South America vs that of European (including later Greek) mammals.
It would be expected that bands of various mammals might bridge the earliest, smallest, channel opening between them to continue efforts to migrate to seasonally fluctuating feeding areas, and interact with their separated cousin mammalian bands. It's not at all clear how, or how long, these "cousin" mammals may have learned to adapt to the lengthening expanse of water separating them. Particularly the mammals of the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys would have been much better able to navigate the smaller expanses of water within their travel-companion islands. This may have encouraged earlier development of seagoing craft than either the continent they left behind or the one they would one day join—perhaps significantly further advanced in maritime technology relative to continental landlubbers.
 350x250.png "Anatolia geological zones (Moix)") |
 890x635.png "Click to enlarge"){kind=small} Gondwanan Anatolia geological zones (Moix), including East Anatolian Fault Zone with EurAsia (EurekAlert 2023.06.29) |
By the time their homeland islands approached Europe 200 Ma later, this would begin to manifest, ≈30 Ma, in a Homo sapiens head-start toward a superior naval technology and trade superiority (in contrast to landlocked Europe) followed by economic wealth, a more advanced civilization and political power. Because of its larger and superior land resources, the Anatolian island would have been clearly in the lead. And this is what we find in the earliest Mediterranean Anatolian-Peloponnesian-Cretan (Moix's diagram) maritime confederacy. This is the superior civilization of Anatolia, Pelopónnese and Knossos, Crete and the Mediterranean "Sea Peoples" cited by the Egyptians.
Further, the Stampfli graphics demonstrate that Gondwanan hã-A•dãm•ãhꞋ (modern Israel), at the heart of Pangea, made the transoceanic "Drift" journey along with the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys and the African continent (including Egypt). It shouldn't be surprising, then, that the attached Tzi•yᵊd•ōnꞋi•an-TzūrꞋi•ans (exonym: Phoenicians) on the north were also accomplished seafarers; or that Egypt had a very ancient civilization and some of the oldest human remains are found in Africa. I'd expect parallel discoveries eventually to be found in South America and, more distantly related, in Europe.
Today's geophysicist and climatologist scientists piece together mathematical models of how our planet got the way it is today since the moon smashed into earth. The journey of (proto-) Crete through this maze seems to put the exclamation on this point. During the entirety of the "recent" (≈50-100 Ma) journey of the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys (including Crete, Pelopónnisos, A•dãm•ãhꞋ and Africa-Arabia Anatolia) through these epochal continental crashes indicates that these islands, including Crete & Anatolia) were "next-door" land neighbors, eventually separated by rising water levels, from the earliest times, When the inevitable crash with Eurasia occurred, Pelopónnisos, not far from Crete, smashed straight into proto-Greece, where it is today!
It is these, or similar, conditions, not modern colonization from some relatively only recently (≈50 Ma) accessible mainland, that determined the identity of original autochthonous Homo sapiens on Crete! And this implies that Cretans were pre-human cousins of Pelopónnisons, Semites, Anatolians and Africans—not Eurasian Greeks! The highly advanced civilization and culture of Cretans, claimed by the Classic Greeks (because they could), was cousin of Anatolian civilization and culture. Their shared natural origins was complemented by their physical proximity for eons, sharing their emerging civilization and culture, eons before meeting the first Eurasian (Greek).
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 Pre-"Continental Crunch" evolutionary ancestor of Hominoidea (earliest humans); suborder of high primates containing the tarsiers and the simians (Simiiformes or anthropoids); as sister of the Strepsirrhini ("moist-noSsed"). |
Catarrhines—("Downward-nosed") aka Cercopithecoidea Cercopithecidæ ("long-tailed apes"), from Africa+ (originally of Gondwana, Pangea). Erroneously, "Old World monkeys"; based on scientific consensus that they "descended from African simians", leading to the following the impossibility: "that colonized South America".
"The [Cercopithecidæ] proboscis monkey is the most aquatic of all primates." Still, the limit of a proboscis monkey is the width of relatively tranquil rivers and "reports of a troop of monkeys seen swimming nearly more than 4 miles in the search of shelter and food during the flood."
In the bad weather periodically encountered in any transoceanic voyage across an open sea, however, a single best monkey swimmer, even during tranquil conditions, might last, at most, ≈10 kilometers before drowning. In the near certainty of particularly violent seas and currents as the "Continental Crunch" approached within sight, in addition to periodic storms, there would have been no chance of survival until the two dry continents closed to within near dry land to dry land jumping distance for monkeys.
Moreover, it seems likely that the last stretch of river separating the two continents may have closed in minutes due to the likelihood of an earthquake caused by the subduction. This seems to make it more likely that these Haplorrhini Primate immediate ancestors of earliest humans from Gondwana and Eurasia were unable, at all, to intermate prior to the actual Continental Crunch.
 170x200.png "monkeys New vs Old World (Animal Spot), edited") |
 855x1024.png "Click to enlarge"){kind=small} Pangean: EurAsia vs Africa+ |
Platyrrhines—("Flat-nosed"), from EurAsia (originally of Gondwana, Pangea). Erroneously, "New World monkeys"; based on the following scientific impossibility: "migration to South America from Afro-Arabia (the Old World), likely by ocean".
I'm not a genetic scientist. But it appears there are some genetic differences between earliest humans descended from the Gondwanan vs EurAsian continental plate; i.e. roughly regarded as European earliest humans vs earliest humans of the pre-Continental Crunch "Cradle of Civilization" (defined herein). These genetic differences appear to be shared by a majority of the Gondwanan "Cradle" (of Civilization) Clade, but not shared amongst the majority of the EurAsian Clade, and vice-versa.
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 Evolution, from the "Great Crunch" ≈41.2 Ma (Edited img © 2024.09.11, Paqid Yirmeyahu Ben-David, The Nᵊtzarim, Ra'anana, Israel; https://www.netzarim.co.il) |
To date (2024.12.14), geneticists can only see back 50.5 Ka! "We found strong support for a single extended period of [EurAsian-ancestry human] Neanderthal gene flow into the common ancestors of all non-["Cradle of Civilization" Gondwanan-ancestry humans] that occurred between 50,500 and 43,500 years ago. These dates provide a lower bound for the timing of the [Gondwanan-ancestry humans] migration and settlement of regions outside [the "Cradle of Civilization"]. The majority of natural selection—positive and negative—on [EurAsian-ancestry human] Neanderthal ancestry happened very quickly after the gene flow and left clear signals in the genetic diversity of the earliest modern humans outside [Gondwanan-ancestry "Cradle of Civilization"]."
Evolution between the first ever evolutionary connection between Gondwana-Catarrhine monkeys that evolved into earliest Gondwana-origin humans vs EurAsian-origin Platyrrhine monkeys that evolved into earliest EurAsian-origin humans dates back to the Great Crunch–≈41.2 Ma!
Today's genetic scientists still seem to be treating the interim ≈41,149,500-year period—in which the evolution from 2 distinct and disparate sets of monkeys to, apparently, 2 distinct and disparate sets of first humans—as an irrelevant "black box"!
Assuming that the two distinct and disparate sets of monkeys somehow evolved to a single set of humans that, inexplicably are 2 distinct groups of humans inexplicably geographically disparate following the geological suture line between the Pangean-EurAsian "Crunch" line is most UNscientific!!!
The continental-clade genetic differences above, apparently reflected in their respective continental-clade earliest human ancestors, don't seem to be chronologically explicable by any reasonable post-Crunch, bi-continent (Gondwanan-EurAsian) cross-mating scenario. This is corroborated by other scientists: "According to Begun and Harrison, the Catarrhini split from their New World monkey kin [post-Crunch] about 44–40 [Ma], with the first catarrhines appearing in Africa and Arabia [both Gondwanan Clade] , and not appearing in Eurasia (outside [Gondwanan Clade] Arabia) until 18-17 [Ma]".
Bi-continental cross-mating among Haplorrhines is also unlikely given the tendency among Haplorrhines—whether Catarrhines or Platyrrhines—to avoid even their own species outside of their clan. Rival bands of Haplorrhines still today don't intermingle much beyond their own—rival warring—clans, much less interbreed with other, never seen-before, opposite-continent families of Haplorrhines. This suggests inter-mating with other species from opposite continents even more unlikely.
Thus, the earliest bi-continental cross-mating seems to have occurred neither before, nor among the Haplorrhines, but by more inquisitive, and sexually curious and active, earliest humans. Even among earliest humans, geneticists have found that a gap of almost the entire 9 Ma separated the emergence of earliest humans from their ability to reproduce other humans! Khaū•ãh´ (Mitochondrial "Eve") lived a mere 200 Ka, while her male prodigy was either unable to reproduce or there were no male prodigy and she had to continue mating with pre-humans until the right genetic match happened. Õ´dãmꞋ, by contrast, wasn't born until 140 kiloannia later—which is very difficult to explain otherwise!
Neither is it clear precisely when inter-mating between Gondwanan "Cradle" Clade earliest humans and EurAsian Clade earliest humans began. Taken together, this persuasively suggests 2 separate direct evolutions; each from a separate continent: a Gondwanan-evolved set of earliest humans vs a EurAsian-evolved set of earliest humans.
This means that the earliest humans, being evolutionarily descended from the Haplorrhines, emerged from 2 distinct and roughly parallel clades: either Gondwanan or EurAsian. This seems to best map to all of the latest science.
"Continental Crunch": Creation Of The Middle-East 0350x200.png "Anatolian Fault Lines") |
 1200x710.png "Click to enlarge"){kind=small} NE Mediterranean & Anatolian (Western Turkey) Geological Zones & Fault Lines (Pic credit: Donna Whitney, UMinn) |
Like ice cubes floating in a pool, geographic plates of the earth's crust float on the surface of our planet. And they drift, imperceptibly slow. Whatever tectonic plate you live, have lived or will live on, you have been drifting on that plate your entire time there—as has all life from its beginning.
Long before a large chunk of Gondwana—including ancient Anatolia (modern Turkey), the Middle East (including Yi•sᵊr•ã•eilꞋ and the entire east Coast of the modern East Mediterranean Basin) along with the entire African continental plate—rifted from the supercontinent of Pangea and, over some 228.8 megayears of tectonic transoceanic drifting across the Palæotethys (now the Atlantic & Mediterranean) Sea until it finally merged in a "Continental Crunch" of the two tectonic plates and began subducting under Pangeal LaurAsia (Greece & Southern Europe)!
While there seems to be a considerable lag in development between the earliest Gondwanan-African human ancestor in contrast to the earliest [EurAsian-]Neanderthal human ancestor, their differences seem to be clearly demarcated geographically in earliest Gondwanan-Anatolia versus earliest Laurasian-Europe!
To EurAsian GreeceWhen our earliest ancestor primate clades (Pangean vs EurAsian) emerged, the African supercontinental plate of Pangea, Gondwana rifted from the South American supercontinental plate, pushing ahead of it the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes (comprising, inter alia, Israel, Crete & Turkey). Together, these plates drifted northeastward counterclockwise until, finally, forming what is today the Dardanelles abutting (where it now continues to subduct beneath) southern Europe including—wait for it—what, still later, became Greece! (The abrading of these great supercontinental plates likely triggered the Great Flooding of the Black Sea.) Thus, Hellenists who argue that Crete was first colonized and civilized by Greeks rather than Anatolians (Turks), whatever their scholarly creds, are simply ignorant! The primate ancestors of today's African, Israeli, Arabian and Turkish Homo sapiens "grew up together", evolving into Homo sapiens autochthonously and continuously, in Pangea; while, until as recently as cBCE 1400, no Greeks existed even in !!! Until cBCE 1400, ancestors of Europeans and future Greeks lived in European Hunic-terranes on the then-far-side of the planet from today's Crete and Turkey; separated by the Great Neotethys (Proto-Atlantic) Ocean!!!
As this supercontinental drift began to infinitesimally separate Crete from Turkey, the related autochthonous primates evolved into the related autochthonous Homo sapiens of both Crete and Turkey—with their shared embryonic culture, civilization and awareness of each other and their increasingly distant locations—separated by the Mediterranean. The first human to self-identify as Greek, by contrast, wouldn't come into existence until megayears later, by which time the Turks (Anatolians) had developed the most technologically advanced supercivilization on earth—along with developing the ships, at first just a raft over a a channel (which would grow into the Atlantic Ocean), to stay in contact with each other as the distance between them infinitesimally increased over megayears!
Still, that leaves a huge gap of ≈32.2 pre-writing megennia prior to the petroglyphs, a very long period about which we know very little concerning the earliest species of Genus Homininae, and an even larger gap back to the subsequent pre-sapiens subfamily Homo (humans); while these petroglyphs writers of Kᵊrē•të left their imprint <1 Ma (<1 megayears ago)—a mere drop in a shot glass ago!
000.022 Ga (≈22 Ma)—Homo & Hominoidea (Apes & Lesser Apes)
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 Science Alert: "Young Gorillas Have Learnt to Dismantle Poachers' Traps in The Wild". (photo: Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund) |
≈000.014 Ga (≈14 Ma) Hominidæ (1ˢᵗ humans, great apes, chimpanzees, gorillas & orangutans—the hominids—followed by Homininæ (≈13 Ma), Hominini (≈10 Ma) & Hominina, the hominins (≈8 Ma)
Importantly, while gorillas, dating back ≈11 Ma in (formerly Gondwana) Aftica aren't considered the closest genetic relatives of humans, their similarities to us are undeniable. Now, we're learning that, just as scientists have found monkeys are mentally superior to humans in some memory and learning tests, upon closer observation gorillas are also surprising us. As a trackers in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park, on a routine daily inspection of the park for poachers' snares, investigated an area where a juvenile Gorilla beringei beringei had been killed in a snare days before, he was suddenly warned to come no closer by a dominant male gorilla. "Suddenly two juvenile gorillas … both about four years old — ran toward the snare. As the tracker and a few tourists watched, the juvenile male gorilla jumped on the bent bamboo branch and broke it, while the juvenile female freed the noose." The two gorillas then reportedly found another snare, and with the help of another juvenile gorilla, managed to dismantle that one too.
We've learned that other animals, from orcas & dolphins to African Gray Parrot, ravens & crows, dogs & horses occasionally demonstrate abilities that astonish us. We like to think we are not animals; that we are distinct and apart. Truth is, not so much as we deceive ourselves to believe. Deliberately and intentionally insisting that it is "unethical" to teach the animals to find and dismantle snares and traps because these less-intelligent cousins must remain "natural" is what is unethical. Some scientists are completely twisted in their "ethics". Long overdue to wake up—not be brainlessly "woke"!
≈000.0008, or ≈000.00004? Ga, (≈.8 Ma, or .04 Ma? ≈800 Ka or 400 Ka)…Or ≈2 Ma (≈0.002 Ga)?—member of Homo—a human—and seems to be the current earliest Homo sapiens: depending upon whether Homo heidelbergensis is deemed to be a Homo sapiens (and, as likely, other earlier fossils may be discovered); since the next discovered to date Homo sapiens fossils (Homo neanderthalensis ), in fact, dates between ≈430 to 040 Ka (430,000 to 40,000 Ya! (See accompanying images of scientific reconstructions from fossils of several pre-sapiens, below). Note that such differentiation is absolutely subjective: what mortal(s) have authority to decide which (set of) characteristic(s) distinguish humans from animal look-alikes? (Back to racist supremacism yet again: it's always "we" who are humans, while "others" are the sub-human animals threatening to contaminate "our" wondrous (often skin-deep color) genes with "animal" genes. Looks like we'll never learn! Every human is also an animal that must breath, ingest water & food, excrete wastes, sleep, and eventually die. How differently should our ethics and mores treat our distinctions of animals as we, mortal animals, look for a physical set(s) of characteristic(s) to differentiate "them" from "us"?)
If we accept Homo erectus as human (as was originally the case), then the emergence of humans dates back to at least to ≈2 Ma (2 million Ya)! The more we learn about ancient Homo lifestyles the more they seem like us. In the past, by contrast, the closer we looked at monkeys, chimps and apes, it seemed how different we are. Today, we're noticing that much of the differences have to do not with intelligence (monkeys are faster and better than humans at a number of memory, mind and intelligence tests!) are dependent on the ability to manipulate an alphabet (enabling language) in order to store and retrieve knowledge, to build on accumulated ancestral knowledge rather than the limitations of memorizing and repeating the same knowledge endlessly.
Periodic discoveries of even earlier human remains continue to push the terminus ad quem of the earliest human back in time, shortening the period from the Continental Crunch to the earliest documented human. This, in turn, increases the %age of human ancestral evolution that is pre- Continental Crunch. Therefore, that %age occurred before Anatolia (Turkey), Crete, Cyprus, the Eastern Mediterranean coastlands and Africa+ ever had any possible contact with humans from EurAsia (including Greece)!
Of course, evolution of species continued during the 32.3 megayear period (≈41.2Ma – ≈8.9Ma) during the separation of the "Gondwana Rift" until the appearance of the first Hominidæ (human). During this period, although the subduction of Anatolia underneath Greece was a continuing process (see maps, above, of Whitney Crunchmap & Moix Crunchmap), subsequent Hominidæ from Anatolia vs Greece seem to be well separated. Perhaps the subduction fault area was in great turmoil, perhaps subject to great or sudden volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and/or floods becoming nearly impassable. In whatever case, subsequent emergence of Hominidæ are clearly distinguishable by their respective geographical side of the subduction fault line: Out-of-Gondwana (Anatolian-African) Hominidæ vs EurAsian (Greek-European) Neanderthals!
"In central and western Turkey, much evidence links the Afyon zone (Anatolides) to adjacent north Gondwana, rather than supporting an origin as an exotic Eurasian terrane that collided with the Tauride continent during latest Triassic time."
But life continued to evolve after the Gondwanan Rift, in both the remainder of Pangea left behind, as well as on the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes and African Continental plates, for the duration of their 210.8 megayears of transoceanic drift before the near simultaneous emergence of Hominidæ—on both continents, which had been separated for that 210.8 megaania period of tectonic drift!
During that 210.8 megayears, significant differentiation among species of the same origins certainly paralleled and mirrored each other in the generally colder clime of Pangeal-Laurasia than in the generally warmer clime of Pangeal-Gondwana. Yet, certainly this could be only one of many environmental differences affecting the many differentiations among people, from eye color to hair color, body structure, amount of melanin in the skin, language, culture, etc.
From the time of the first Homo sapiens until the present stage of technology has consumed >300 millennia (>0.3 megennium). One might, therefore, expect that a similar time period would be required from the time of the first Hominids until, say, the first raft was built enabling inter-island travel among the nearby subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys.
However, it's also true that, if the first of a species doesn't succeed at least to the point of reproduction, then the species goes extinct at that point. So I turn the question on its head: which came first, new species capable of some distant future success? Or successes (discoveries developed into proto-cultures) that were then shared within the band, propelling their kind to advantage? Which determined which? I submit it is the same today. A discovery leads to a comparatively immediate leap and advantage (though not necessarily for the brainy discoverer individual!), but for the individual best positioned to take advantage of the discovery; think the WW-II-era inventors of television and computers who died in poverty, or Edison vs his nameless inventors). Compared to megayears relative to physical evolution, the advantage of a breakthrough technology propelling a particular band or strain to success, happens immediately; perhaps 1-2 generations or less (e.g., industrial revolution, electricity & communications, atomic energy, rocketry, information processing & the internet).
Further, how far might we expect ancient mammals to be able to navigate across ≈4,200 km (≈2,600 mi) of open Tetrys Ocean? Even today, polar bears have been documented swimming nearly 700 km (≈450 mi) of open sea in a single journey; not to mention marine navigational limitations! While the polar bear almost certainly far exceeds the capability of any early Hominids in that respect, the Pelopónnese, Cretan and Anatolian Keys of the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes do not appear to have approached such a distance from each other at any point before the end of their megayear transoceanic drift. At the beginning, they were one contiguous tract of land in what is now South America (Pangea, Gondwana). Furthermore, some mammals living along the coeval east Neotethys Ocean coast would have been native predators of various seafoods: harvesting edible seaweeds, digging mollusks, killing crabs and, perhaps mimicking seabirds, the earliest terrestrial mammalian fishers. Moreover, the ability to span the emerging gaps between the newly forming islands may have started as wading across creeks, allowing even lower animals to adapt and migrate across in the early stages as the gaps grew imperceptibly over countless lifetimes.
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| Parvorder Hominidæ (Hominoidea) Evolutonary Tree |
The evolutionary tree of Homo sapiens threads back to mammals in the Carboniferous Period >300 Ma! At that point, what is today the island of Crete, like its cultural neighbor modern Turkey, was then still the unbroken eastern seaboard of Pangea, prior to the Gondwanan Rift from Pangea into the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys and drifting northeast (from modern South America), eventually to arrive at what today comprises Africa, Israel and the eastern coastal lands of the Mediterranean.
Prior to the rejoining of Gondwana and Eurasia (see maps, above, of Whitney Crunchmap & Moix Crunchmap) ≈41.2 Ma (after the earlier Great Rift of Pangea ≈270 Ma), modern Pelopónnese, Crete and Turkey were neighbors of a single land mass, along with their genetically related indigenous cousin Mammals and Primate progenitors of various strains of Homo sapiens—millions of years before they drifted into any contact with European (northern) Greece (see map)!
Geneticists have found that countless Homo sapiens, "modern humans", walking the earth today carry various Genus Homo species DNA as part of their own DNA in addition to sapiens! These various Homo species originate from scattered places from Gondwana (ancient South America and Africa) to the EurAsian continent on the opposite side of the planet!
All evidence points to shared Mammalian ancestry in Pangea, primarily evolving post-Rift simultaneously: parallel, yet separate and distinct, in various parts of the world—not excluding Gondwana and the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys (including Crete!)—to Primates. No differently from other Primates in different parts of the world where conditions permitted, Primates branched into a variety of:
Suborder Haplorhini, further evolving and branching into an even wider variety of
Infraorder Simiiformes (Simians), then further branching into
Parvorder Catarrhini [Old World monkeys & apes including humans] and Superfamily Hominidæ (hominids—the great apes),
Subfamily Homininæ,
Tribe Hominini culminating in a not clearly defined Genus Homo—The systematic genus, Homo (Latin "human, man"), is designed to include both anatomically modern humans and extinct varieties of archaic humans.
In addition, geneticists have found that modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) carry DNA in their blood from at least several, as well as perhaps countless other undiscovered, extinct Homo species. We see archaic humans today, and they are not extinct; they are blended into us, all of us; each of us being a unique blend!
Thus, humans comprise, inter alia
Homo sapiens and an unknown number of muddled cousin humans thought to be extinct but whose DNA scientists are finding in all of us (e.g., Homo erectus (2–0.1 Ma), Homo heidelbergensis a species of humans, (0.7–0.2 Ma), Homo neanderthalensis a species of humans (0.43–0.04 Ma), Homo floresiensis (0.190–0.050 Ma).
 0150x189.png "8.7 Ma Homininae Anadoluvius turkae female cranium anterior") |
 1000x519.png "Click to enlarge"){kind=small} 8.7 Ma Homininae Anadoluvius turkae—Anatolian (Turkish) female cranium anterior |
Archaeologists are still uncertain whether Ms. Turkey of 8.7 Ma is genus Homo (human), Pan (chimpanzee) or Gorilla. The distinctions are ever diminishing and blurred. In any case, archaeologists are tracing Anatolian (Turkish: subtropical Cimmerian Terranes-African— not European nor Asian) subfamily Homininae (human evolutionary lineage) ever further back in time. It's becoming increasingly clearer that distinct and separate evolutions of genus Homo occurred in Pangean Laurasia (EurAsia) as differentiated from the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes African "Out of Africa" evolution of genus Homo. I plan to discuss the pertinent recent paper in the appropriate (Kit•imꞋ/Kᴴa•tᵊ•tūꞋshan: Anatolian, modern Turkish) webpage.
 0150x125.png "Homo erectus") |
 0150x110.png "Homo heidelbergensis") |
 150x125.png "Homo neanderthalensis") |
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 150x150.png "Homo EurAsian-Denisovan; illus. Maayan Harel, Hebrew University, Yᵊrushalayim") |
 0150x100.png "Homo floresiensis") |
| Homo erectus a species of humans, (2 Ma—100 Ka, Gondwana/Africa) | Homo heidelbergensis a species of humans, (700—200 Ka, Gondwana/Africa) | Homo neanderthalensis a species of humans (430—40 Ka, EurAsia) | Homo naledi a species of humans, (250 Ka, Gondwana/Africa) | Homo Denisova a species of humans, (daughter of EurAsian-Denisovan m. & EurAsian-Neanderthal f.; 82—74 Ka, Eur-Asia) |
Homo floresiensis a species of humans, (190—50 Ka, EurAsia) |
"Dwarf elephants and dwarf deer are extinct, but between 800,000 and 3,000 years ago they lived on islands in the Mediterranean and Indonesia, and off the coasts of Siberia and California."
Like Anatolia (modern Turkey) and the entire east coastlands of today's Mediterranean Sea (including Israel and the island of Cyprus), Crete began as Gondwana's beachfront on the Neotethys Ocean—halfway around the planet, over the ocean, from EurAsia (including Greece). Crete remained land-bridged (or, in the last stages before the Continental Crunch, uncertain island-hopping back to Africa+ within the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes island chain) for 228.8 megayears (228,800,000 years), throughout its transoceanic voyage halfway across planet, tectonically drifting across the Neotethys Ocean. At its closest point to the EurAsian continent (Greece)—which is today, Crete remains ≈160 km (99 mi) from EurAsian Greece!
According to the DeepMIP model, along with PI topography/bathymetry from ETOPO5 (see earlier accompanying graphic), by contrast, it doesn't appear that there was any land-bridge between the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes and EurAsia prior to the Continental Crunch of ≈41.2 Ma, when Anatolia (Turkey) crashed into the EurAsian continent and began to subduct beneath it!
The tectonic subduction fault line, as set forth by Douwe, et al., distinguishes Asia (e.g., ancient Anatolia/Turkey, Crete, the eastern coastlands of the Mediterranean Sea) & Africa from Greece and the rest of Europe. (While there is today a land border between Greece and Turkey, that small stretch is an aberration from the tectonic juncture, which follows the Meriç (Greek Evros) River. This suture of Asia-Africa and Europe is generally regarded as the most complex and challenging to understand of any geographic location on this planet.
Elephants were absent from EurAsian Pangea (i.e. Greece & Europe) while plentiful in Africa and Anatolia (modern Turkey)—and present on earliest known Crete during the Pleistocene (≈2.58Ma to cBCE 9700). The obvious deduction is that the dwarf elephants in earliest Crete derived from Pangeal Gondwanan Africa, not Pangeal EurAsian Europe. The most likely way to account for this is that the dwarf elephants on Crete evolved, to adapt to the island's limitations, parallel to African elephants; both from lower animals originating in Gondwana—not EurAsia (Europe+). As shown in accompanying scientific maps & diagrams, the demarcation of the juncture of Gondwana with Laurasia also closely demarcates the dwarf elephants on Crete from Europe—as well as demarcating Homo sapiens out of Africa from the [EurAsian-]Neanderthals out of Europe!
Being buoyant in water and equipped with their own snorkel, full-sized Asian elephants have been known to swim the short distances between a couple of Andaman islands off India. Still, salt water is an irritant to elephants. AI chat Llama 3 summarized the available knowledge: "Rajan, the [last sea-swimming] Asian elephant [1950–2016, ybd], was known for his swimming abilities. He was a resident of the Andaman Keys, and his swimming skills were quite impressive.Rajan was observed swimming long distances in the Bay of Bengal, and it's reported that he could swim up to 5-6 kilometers (3.1-3.7 miles) without resting. In one instance, he even swam 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) to reach a nearby island!"
"In the Asphendou cave near the White Mountains of western Crete… [a calcite flowstone] inscribed with complex geometric and figural rock art (petroglyphs) was discovered in the 1960s … palaeontological and iconographic evidence to confirm a Palaeolithic [≈625 Ka – end of last ice age ≈8.5 Ka] date (most likely the ‘Upper’ Palaeolithic: 50Ka–12Ka) for the earliest carvings."
"Palaeolithic artists represented what they knew, in this case a prevalent species of Cretan dwarf deer (Candiacervus), which became extinct in the Upper Palaeolithic."
"…several new Palaeolithic sites have been discovered throughout the Aegean basin.
ÕdãmꞋ & Khaū•ãhꞋ of Ta•na״khꞋ are generic terms for the earliest common ancestral pair(s) derived from lower species that originated in the A•dãm•ãhꞋ (gigayears later: Yi•sᵊr•ã•eilꞋ) locale of Gondwana, of the Pangea supercontinent. While ancient peoples didn't grasp the emergence of life and evolution of Homo sapiens, the Hebrew term translated "rib", is most certainly an allegory, perhaps referring to DNA. The ancient account in Ta•na״khꞋ does not rule out other, geographically disparate and widely separated pairs and matings of human ancestors, thereafter evolving independently and roughly in parallel: [EurAsian-]Neanderthal et al. ancestors in Pangeal Europe, Cro-Magnon et al. ancestors in Pangeal Siberia and African & Asian species (long separated from Europe & Siberia by an ocean) from the Pangeal Asia-Africa continent (including the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes).
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 Gondwanan (Anatolian)-EurAsian Fault Line Mirrors Divide in earliest human speciation. Theorized migrations of pre-Homo sapien hominins (archaic humans) from the Anatolian-African continent (Homo heidelbergensis) vs hominins from the EurAsian continent. (Map by John D. Croft; edited by Yirmeyahu Ben-David (2023) to remove arrowheads of uncertain directions) |
 0350x200.png "Anatolian-EurAsian Fault Line Homo Divide map") |
 0750x420.png "Click to enlarge"){kind=small} Anatolian-EurAsian Fault Line Mirrors Divide in earliest human speciation (Jorge Garcia & Elena Bosch) |
There is an intriguing, impossible to deny, and challenging to otherwise explain similarity between the Mediterranean-embracing Gondwanan-EurAsian Continents Tectonics Crunch (Suture, Subduction) Curve in Whitney & Moix maps (earlier) and the Hominid Genetic Curves in these Croft & Garcia-Bosch maps! Taken together, these seem to evidence that the former strongly effected (sic) the latter.
"[EurAsian-]Neanderthals are known to contribute up to 1-4% of the genomes of non-[Gondwanan-]African modern humans, depending on what region of the wor[l]d your ancestors come from, and modern humans who lived about 40,000 years ago have been found to have up to 6-9% [EurAsian-]Neanderthal DNA (Fu et al., 2015). Because [EurAsian-]Neanderthals likely evolve outside of [Gondwanan-]Africa (no [EurAsian-]Neanderthal fossils have been found in Africa to date) it was thought that there would be no trace of [EurAsian-]Neanderthal DNA in [Gondwanan-]African modern humans. However, a study in 2020 demonstrated that there is [EurAsian-]Neanderthal DNA in all [Gondwanan-]African Homo sapiens (Chen at el., 2020). This is a good indicator of how human migration out of [Gondwanan-]Africa worked: that Homo sapiens did not leave [Gondwanan-]Africa in one or more major dispersals, but that there was gene flow back and forth over time that brough[t] [EurAsian-]Neanderthal DNA into [Gondwanan-]Africa. … [EurAsian-]Neanderthals have also indirectly contribute[d] to the genome of modern humans of [Gondwanan-]African descent via ancient modern human migrations back into [Gondwanan-]Africa"
"The new investigation also finds that [Western; i.e. Gondwanan "Asians"] and [Gondwanan] South Americans possess more [EurAsian-]Neandert[h]al genes than Europeans do. Although [EurAsian-]Neandert[h]als inhabited Europe and [East of the Suture Line, not West] Asia, they may have interbred [post-Crunch] most frequently with Homo sapiens in East Asia, or, possibly, had their genetic contributions to Europeans diluted as increasing numbers of Stone Age humans reached that continent." The [EurAsian-]Denisova Cave in Russia has yielded at least 100,000 years’ worth of artifacts…
"Relative to chimpanzee DNA, [EurAsian-Denisovan] DNA displayed fewer alterations than the genetic code of people today did. That disparity reflects the fact that [EurAsian-Denisovans, perhaps genetically recessive, simply receded during] the Stone Age [≈BCE 3600–2500] and thus had less time than surviving humans to generate genetic changes [corroborating the likelihood of being gene recessive] relative to chimps. The scientists used that difference to calculate a provisional age of between 74,000 and 82,000 years for the [EurAsian-Denisovan] finger bone, tens of thousands of years older than previous data had suggested…
"The same gene variants carried by the [EurAsian-Denisovan] individual are commonly found today in living people with dark skin, brown hair and brown eyes."
According to "Chris Stringer, a professor and research leader in Human Origins at The Natural History Museum in London…[,] It also appears that our ancestors may have interacted more widely with [EurAsian-Denisovans] than [EurAsian-]Neanderthals… Relatively small groups of early modern humans interbred with [EurAsian-]Neanderthals in western Eurasia and then spread across Eurasia and beyond, passing on that level of acquired [EurAsian-]Neanderthal DNA to descendant populations,… In the case of the [EurAsian-Denisovans], it looks like they were genetically much more diverse, and they intermixed separately in different locations with differentiating early modern populations, hence the more varied patterns we see today."
Archaeologists argue that, during the early periods of this [Gondwanan] African—EurAsian (Neanderthal) DNA fusion, neither [Gondwanan-]African nor EurAsian humans possessed the marine technology to build rafts, much less ships capable of navigating ≈4,200 km (≈2,600 mi) of open Tetrys Ocean from EurAsian Greece to the island of Gondwanan Crete (or [Gondwanan] Cyprus) until perhaps 0.000075 Ga (75 Ka)!
Assuming advance maritime technology in shipbuilding, with no archaeological ship-building evidence whatsoever, based simply on some researchers' need to explain the presence of tools 100 Ka earlier, cannot be justified. Genetic clades freely migrating between the EurAsia Continental plate and the Gondwanan-Africa Continental plate must be demonstrated, not assumed. No sound basis has emerged to justify this assumption of migration even between Europe and Africa!
A fortiori, since no human was even capable of open seafaring the 2,727 km (≈1,700 mi) between post-Crunch Africa and Crete (or Cyprus), nor even between EurAsia and Crete (or Cyprus), then they certainly did not migrate ≈4,200 km (≈2,600 mi) of open Tetrys Ocean between Africa in the Gondwanan Continental plate and the EurAsia Continental plate far earlier! This seems to imply that 92.9% of EurAsian-"Neanderthal DNA in all [Gondwanan-]African Homo sapiens" had to have occurred before the "Continental Crunch" ≈.0412 Ga. That leaves only the possibility that these DNA types evolved 92.9% in parallel, geographically separate and distinct, probably in more than one case, and further up the ancestral tree—among evolving pre-Homo primates!!!
Consequently, Hominids of various strains had various migrating capabilities and mental strategies. We may tend to think of evolution as a linear progression. But reality dictates that there were different sub-strains with different capabilities, both mental and physical, living coevally—just as today. We tend to forget that there exist today over 200 primitive human tribes about whom we know very little, still living as primitive humans; while at the opposite end of the spectrum, coeval humans range from primitive native tribes to astronauts walking on the moon and living in orbit around our planet. There was a diverse range then just as there remains today.
While written proto-language petroglyphs haven't been found before ≈625 Ka, oral proto-language superior to the basic communications of today's bands of chimps or monkeys, surely preceded Hominids. Birds have surprised scientists by communicating to other birds basic words learned from humans, crows remember humans from 40 years earlier and bees communicate complicated directions through dance. Monkeys not only have communicating to each other adaptations learned from humans, they have demonstrated their ability to perform logic and memory functions not only way faster than humans, but occasionally at a higher level than the scientists testing them. Whales and dolphins communicate, perhaps globally, in a language we don't understand. We've only recently figured out Egyptian hieroglyphs and Semitic Anatolian, Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform. We still don't understand much of the ancient Linear B language. Discoveries of the use of tools by mammals (e.g., otters) and birds periodically surprises scientists. Are we not to regard Hominid early humans—more like us than these "lower" animals?
It was likely quite early in their evolution that Hominids learned how to improve their fishing by paddling out a ways on a log; from which making a dug-out, raft and paddles was certainly not 49 Ma away! Nor was the washing ashore of a strange raft, which they hadn't made, somewhere over the navigable horizon, telling them there had human neighbors, probably on a similar island—and within rafting distance. Inter-island travel introduced trade and learning between these Cyclade islanders (Anatolia-Crete-Cyprus-Thera, et al.), fostering a shared, (initially Eastern direction from South America, arcing to Northern as they approached Europe/Greece). A shared Northern Gondwanan oral communications and proto-culture in the Mediterranean Eastern Basin and surrounding coastland seems a certainty. This Northern Gondwanan language and culture is today known as Semitic (sons of Shæm)—languages of ᵏHa•tᵊ•tū´sha, Syria, TzūrꞋ and Yi•sᵊr•ã•æl´eil´.
How much more ability might we expect of the brightest among early Hominids to use tools and communicate information about a culture surrounding tool use, locations of food sources and seasonal migrations—and reading bird and ocean mammals migrations to keep track of locations of neighboring islands, and seasonal inter-island migration for food; perhaps even a shared tradition of notions about their shared origins?
Even today, archaeological scientists marvel and scratch their heads trying to explain what Anatolian super-civilization could have built Göbekli Tepe at the apex of the Fertile Crescent ≈9.5 Ka – 8 Ka!!!
The earliest extant evidence of human-crafted stone tools on the Mediterannean island of Kᵊrē•të sets the terminus ad quem of early autochthonous human presence on Kᵊrē•të: ≈130 Ka b.p.
"Based on the available data - and we stress that research is ongoing - the most parsimonious hypothesis is that the exploitation of … the Plakias region took place in both the Pleistocene and early Holocene, and that two separate human groups left traces of their existence in this region, one in the Middle to Upper Pleistocene (ca. 130,000 b.p. or earlier), and the other in the late Pleistocene-early Holocene (ca. 11,000-9000 b.p.)."
Who was this original Mediterranean, technologically advanced, seagoing super-civilization (called "Sea People" by the Egyptians and mislabeled by modern explorers as "Minoans" and, almost correct, "Hittites" (not "Hethites")?
Were they neighboring relatives from the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes islands, which rifted from proto-South America in Gondwana, Pangea ≈270 Ma and drifted imperceptibly slowly across the the Palæotethys (now the Atlantic & Mediterranean Seas) until ≈50 Ma? Most current data I find points to a submerged eastern-arcing-to-northern fringe of Gondwana.
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 Herodotus' Description of the East Mediterranean Coast (Rainey 2001-6a of 7) |
The Kit•imꞋ were a province of southern ᵏHa•tᵊ•tū´sha, on the northeast coast of the Mediterranean Sea—famous for logging cedar and building xTarshish-Class ships capable of navigating the Mediterranean Sea, the eastern coastlands of the Atlantic Ocean north along the West coasts of Europe. Ancient records of merchandise they brought back from the east confirms that, apparently via the Tigris and Euphrates rivers on the east, they traded as far east as the Indian port of אוֹפִיר.
≈BCE 850Confederating in the Bronze Age with the Tzi•yᵊd•ōn•im´-TzūrꞋ•i (modern Lebanon), their combined confederation fleet plied the entire Mediterranean—known by all of the coastlands as the "Sea Peoples".
Applying new techniques to date petroglyph writing, discovered a few decades ago on the Mediterranean island of Crete, Prof. Thomas Strasser and his associates have contributed significantly to the ancient picture of autochthonous Hominids in the Mediterranean Basin by "confirming" that flint tool-making on Crete pushes back archaeologists' pottery-stratigraphy dating to ≈175 Ka.
However, Arts-degreed Strasser et al. then assumed that "The long period of separation (more than [5 megaannia]) of Crete from any landmass implies that the early inhabitants of Crete reached the island using seacraft capable of open-sea navigation and multiple journeys - a finding that pushes the history of seafaring in the Mediterranean back by more than 100,000 years and has important implications for the dispersal of early humans."
It must be noted here that there is no physical evidence supporting arts-degreed "Classical Archaeologist" Strasser's fallacious implication that would "[push] the history of seafaring in the Mediterranean back by more than 100,000 years". Such questions, including dating of ancient objects, artifacts or events must be left to the scientists. Any base dating by someone with an arts degree is suspect; and any dating based on reasoning or conclusions by someone with an arts degree citing scientists is also suspect, and such reasoning must be confirmed by a legitimate scientist.
The apparent conflict between the first mitochondrial Khaū•ãhꞋ and, 60 millennia later, the first ÕdãmꞋ, is briefly covered in their respective explanatory pages.
The origins of ÕdãmꞋ and Khaū•ãhꞋ weren't clearly understood by the scribes who recorded bᵊReish•itꞋ, and, even in our modern era, this still remains exacerbated by our own poor understanding of the origins of Homo sapiens.
Sparse findings of evidence suggests that the first Genus Homo was female (Khaū•ãhꞋ) and scientists have discovered no evidence of males of Genus Homo for the next 60 Ka! Of course, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Tomorrow, a coeval male bone from Genus Homo could be found, or even a male bone from Genus homo predating Khaū•ãhꞋ (i.e. ÕdãmꞋ)!
In the interim, however, the evidence suggests that, for the first 60 millennia, Genus Homo (human) women produced only Tribe Homininæ males (and likely also Tribe Homininæ females) as well as (perhaps only rarely) Genus Homo (human) daughters; never Genus Homo (human) sons who survived to reproduce. The resulting situation was a new strain of Genus Homo (human) women with no Genus Homo (human) men. Thus, Genus Homo (human) women could only reproduce with Tribe Homininæ males (who were not human men), producing no Genus Homo (human) men.
It was only after some evolutionary DNA change occurred 60 millennia after the emergence of Genus Homo (human) women gave birth to Genus Homo (human) sons. This apparently occurred either
as the result of a particular combination, or certain combinations of particular species of Tribe Homininæ males reproducing with particular species of Genus Homo (human) women, began producing Genus Homo (human) sons (perhaps the result of unusual migrations or other inter-species encounters), or
some DNA change occurred in certain particular species of Tribe Homininæ males (not human men), enabling them to reproduce Genus Homo (human) sons together, or
some DNA change occurred in certain particular species of Genus Homo (human) women, enabling them to reproduce Genus Homo (human) sons with (perhaps certain species of) Tribe Homininæ males (not human men)
The initial emergence of Genus Homo human men (as well as the initial emergence of Genus Homo human women) likely occurred in more than one combination of species, in parallel and distinct, in more than one place, within the same general era. Further speciation (evolution) is still occuring continuously today.
Throughout the passage, the Hebrew tradition properly translates הָֽאָדָֽם as the collective form (i.e. humans, humanity, humankind—Genus Homo).
The original language (Hebrew) of bᵊReish•itꞋ 2.20 makes clear that "So ã•dãmꞋ [i.e. (Genus) Homo males collectively, humankind] named all of the beasts and birds of ha-shã•maꞋyim… but for hã-ã•dãmꞋ [the Genus Homo male, the human male collectively and specifically] no helper-counterpart was found."
"Helper-counterpart" can be understood as "a counterpart mate capable of giving birth to a surviving and reproducing male Genus Homo (human man)… was not found".
Verse 21 then becomes obvious: "So יְהוָׂה ël•ōh•imꞋ caused the (women-only human) Genus Homo side-species (species) sapiens to sleep"—for 60 millennia, until [יְהוָׂה] prepared (some DNA combination of) a מִצַּלְעֹתָ֔יו (a side-species—erectus, neanderthalensis, etc., or some hybrid combination) and closed-up that 60 millennia hole in reproducing a complete Homo species sapiens from some Homo side-species (not an individual human's side).
In fact, the account of Nᵊphil•imꞋ may confirm this 60 Ka separation between the first female Homo sapiens, Khaū•ãhꞋ—when only bᵊn•eiꞋ-hã-ël•ōh•imꞋ: Nᵊphil•imꞋ creations/children of ël•ōh•imꞋ = Genus Homo males other than species sapiens) existed to procreate with female Homo sapiens for 60 Ka—until the first, immediate, male ancestor to Homo sapiens, ÕdãmꞋ, evolved!
So no,"The long period of separation (more than 5,000,000 years) of Crete from any landmass" does not imply that Crete had to be originally settled by seafaring visitors to the island! Such implication requires assuming that the first male Homo sapiens and the first female Homo sapiens were coevals from whom all subsequent Homo sapiens have derived (only thereafter dispersing from a single origin)—a simplistic misreading of the Scriptural description.
Ergo, I maintain that there's no defensible reason to assume that the Kᵊrē•të islanders weren't autochthonous to Kᵊrē•të Key! They didn't need to make a sea voyage to get to Kᵊrē•të Key, they were born there and, for eons, knew only inter-island fishing & trading with neighboring subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys, especially their closest islands: Peloponesia and Anatolia. For all of those eons they knew nothing of EurAsia or Greece.
In other words, Superfamily Hominidæ evolved on Kᵊrē•të like several, probably many, other places on the planet and further evolved into one or more of Hominid genera, etc. There's no strong reason to believe that any Hominids had to travel to Crete from anywhere else in order to initially populate the island with ancestors of Homo sapiens! They more likely evolved from their autochthonous Mammalian, then Primate, etc. ancestors right on the island, just like many other places where the conditions were within limits.
This set of conditions suggests that the emergence of the first Homo sapiens very likely also occurred in parallel, yet separate and distinct, other, perhaps many, instances and places during the same epoch, in every habitable part of the planet. We just haven't found enough evidence yet to piece it together. The argument continues among scientists: how human were the various Genus Homo species? Including chimpanzees (closest to sapiens)? Orangutans? Gorillas? Perhaps their respective "human rights" activists have a point?
All of the Gondwanan lands, including the (present Mediterranean) islands almost certainly had nearly identical flora and fauna to give rise to their individual emergence of earliest, autochthonous human evolution and habitation. Modern man simply hasn't yet discovered evidence to prove it. Indeed, such evidence may no longer exist to ever answer that question with complete confidence.
Because of its greater resources (from mining to forestry, etc.), mainland autochthonous ᵏHa•tᵊ•tū´sha (including Pelopónnesia & Kit•imꞋ) well-documented as the most efficient and fastest advancing, super-civilization of its era. first civilization to navigate and discover the islanders of Kᵊrē•të & QëꞋphᵊr•i.
Ascribing open-ocean seafaring capabilities to these early peoples (Strasser et al.; mainland western Turkey and Pelopónnese, as well as the Mediterranean islands of Crete, Cyprus & the Cyclade Islands of the Ægean Sea) suggests that, before intermingling with EurAsians, these post-Crunch, earliest human, islander-descendants from Gondwanaland likely first discovered their cousin islanders—each other. Certainly, they would have distinguished each other from EurAsians. Earliest Gondwanan-heritage humans likely first began visiting and trading with each other via island-hopping, their ship-building (marine architecture, led by ᵏHa•tᵊ•tū´sha) and seafaring capabilities were the central enterprise toward their prosperity and civilizational advancement.
Thus, led by the mainland ᵏHa•tᵊ•tū´sha, due to their greater natural resources, their cultures tended to intermingle as well. This encouraged increasing trade by all parties, leading to ᵏHa•tᵊ•tū´sha establishing a ᴷH•ãr•ūmꞋ on every essential island; not as conquering colonists but as commercial centers for the mutual, cooperative, benefit of all NëꞋsha "cousins". This was the emergence of the world's first superpower.
Greeks and Europeans argue that the first Hominoids on Crete only occurred hundreds of millions of years after the subtropical Cimmerian Terranes Keys rifted from South America and drifted across what is now the Atlantic Ocean to crash into Europe—finally meeting European-Greek colonists. What Greeks and other Europeans fail to acknowledge is that Hominins' immediate evolutionary ancestors—Parvorder Catarrhini monkeys—had evolved and populated the Cimmerian Terranes, xir setting the stage for the emergence of earliest humans, at the time they "Crunched" into Greece, suturing to the rest of EurAsia—only 41.2 Ma!
"People" misunderstand science. Scientists are still arguing even what might constitute the litmus test distinguish a human! Furthermore, "earliest discovered fossils" determines only the terminus ad quem of, i.e. no later than, for an earliest human. This acknowledges the meager evidence that we have discovered represents only a nano-scintilla of ancient humans. This does not even hint that it represents the earliest human. We don't know what we haven't discovered. Nor do we have much idea what evidence has disappeared over the megaannia. Earliest man could date back even before the "Big Crunch"… and we just haven't excavated in the right spots, with the right science (if such scientific capability is even possible) to discover the earliest instances of man. All we do know is the stage was set for man at the time of the "Big Crunch". That means we don't know when earliest man appeared. Man may even have emerged before the "Big Crunch".
All that current evidence shows is that man emerged no later than 12—8 Ma, depending on the criteria eventually decided to distinguish humans from apes—if that is even possible. Increasingly, all of the evidence seems to indicate otherwise: that different clades of earliest humans emerged in different geographic locations from slightly different native species of higher humanlike apes—a spectrum, rather than a single, mating pair remember, a remarkable pair of instances.
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The consequence of this is that Greeks were not even remotely close to the great luminaries of all the world's earliest culture, philosophy and science. The Greeks merely pagiarized the culture, philosophy, science and technology of the world's first superpower—the ᵏHa•tᵊ•tū´sha! These were the people and civilization archaeologists have never been able to identify; builders of the "alien" super-civilization archaeologists irresponsibly dubbed "Minoans"! The ᵏHa•tᵊ•tū´sha, along with their confederation with the TzūrꞋ were known as the "Sea People"—whose Mediterranean Naval Fleet was decimated in a moment as their main Naval HQ, in qqqTheraL3, exploded into the stratosphere, decimating their economy and civilization, ≈BCE !
Only after the LBAC, with the ᵏHa•tᵊ•tū´sha and TzūrꞋ naval fleets decimated, were the Greeks left to take over the Pelopónnesian port in Pūlos some time in the BCE 1200s qqq: the rise of the Pūlossians and their "Classical Greece" plagiarizing all earlier civilizations!!!
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Pay it forward (Quote & Cite):
| Yirmeyahu Ben-David. The Biblical Kritim (2024.12.14). Netzarim Jews Worldwide (Ra'anana, Israel). https://www.netzarim.co.il/Shared/Glossary/Kritim.htm (Retrieved: Month Da, 20##). |
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