Stone-age hunters crossed the Mediterranean, study finds
Long-distance seafarers crossed the Mediterranean far earlier than scientists had believed, a new study has found.
Excavations at a cave on the island of Malta have uncovered stone tools, cooking site and animal skeletons from 8,500 years ago — 1,000 years before the first farmers arrived on the island, according to findings published in the journal Nature.
The findings 'force a re-evaluation of the seafaring abilities of Europe's last hunter-gatherers, as well as their connections and ecosystem impacts,' said Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and the University of Malta.
'Connections' in that case refers to the possibility that hunter-gatherer communities may have made regular trips between communities scattered across Mediterranean islands — and that they may have played a crucial role in wiping out island species previously thought to have gone extinct long before the arrival of humans.
Because humans aren't native to Malta — or indeed any small island — that finding represents the oldest known long-distance seafaring in the Mediterranean.
Thanks to better-known ancient travelers like the Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans, that sea would become legendary for its maritime traffic.
But scientists had long believed that its many islands were only accessible to relatively advanced, settled farming civilizations — an assumption that Wednesday's paper calls into question.
In the cave site on northern Malta, scientists found trace remnants of the roasted carcasses of red deer, tortoises and birds, as well as the remains of the marine life that once swarmed around Malta.
'We found remains of seal, various fish, including grouper, and thousands of edible marine gastropods, crabs and sea urchins, all indisputably cooked,' coauthor James Blinkhorn of the University of Liverpool and the Max Planck Institute of Anthropology said in a statement.
The crossing, likely carried out in dugout canoes without sails, would have been harrowing: a 60-mile (100 km) passage over open water at a grueling pace of about 2 miles per hour. To survive it, these pioneering hunters would have relied on their knowledge of prevailing winds and sea currents, and navigated by the stars and notable landmarks.
Even so, 'these seafarers would have had over several hours of darkness in open water,' coauthor Nicholas Vella of the University of Malta said in a statement.
The finding raises more questions than it answers. Scientists don't know how these hunters knew that Malta was there; how far back in time such crossings were carried out; or if similar sites lie, waiting to be discovered, on other islands across the Mediterranean.
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Tyrannosaurs, known scientifically as Eutyrannosaurians, bring to mind hulking dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex and Tarbosaurus, which weighed multiple metric tons and could take down equally large prey. With short arms and massive heads, they walked on two legs and boasted sharp teeth, Zelenitsky said. But tyrannosaurs didn't start out that way. They evolved from smaller dinosaurs before dominating the landscapes of North America and Asia between 85 million and 66 million years ago, the researchers said. While Tarbosaurus, an ancestor of T. rex, clocked in at between 3,000 and 6,000 kilograms (6,613 pounds and 13,227 pounds), the fleet-footed Khankhuuluu mongoliensis likely weighed only around 750 kilograms (1,653 pounds), spanned just 2 meters (6.5 feet) at the hips and 4 meters (13 feet) in length, according to the study authors. Comparing the two dinosaurs would be like putting a horse next to an elephant —Khankhuuluu would have reached T. rex's thigh in height, Zelenitsky said. 'Khankhuuluu was almost a tyrannosaur, but not quite,' Zelenitsky said. 'The snout bone was hollow rather than solid, and the bones around the eye didn't have all the horns and bumps seen in T. rex or other tyrannosaurs.' Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, or a closely related ancestor species, likely migrated from Asia to North America across a land bridge between Alaska and Siberia that connected the continents 85 million years ago, Zelenitsky said. Because of this migrant species, we now know that tyrannosaurs actually evolved first on the North American continent and remained there exclusively over the next several million years, she said. 'As the many tyrannosaur species evolved on the continent, they became larger and larger.' Due to the poor fossil record, it's unclear what transpired in Asia between 80 million to 85 million years ago, she added. While some Khankhuuluu may have remained in Asia, they were likely replaced later on by larger tyrannosaurs 79 million years ago. Meanwhile, another tyrannosaur species crossed the land bridge back to Asia 78 million years ago, resulting in the evolution of two related but very different subgroups of tyrannosaurs, Zelenitsky said. One was a gigantic, deep-snouted species, while the other known as Alioramins was slender and small. These smaller dinosaurs have been dubbed 'Pinocchio rexes' for their long, shallow snouts. Both types of tyrannosaurs were able to live in Asia and not compete with each other because the larger dinosaurs were top predators, while Alioramins were mid-level predators going after smaller prey — think cheetahs or jackals in African ecosystems today, Zelenitsky said. 'Because of their small size, Alioramins were long thought to be primitive tyrannosaurs, but we novelly show Alioramins uniquely evolved smallness as they had 'miniaturized' their bodies within a part of the tyrannosaur family tree that were all otherwise giants,' Zelenitsky said. One more migration happened as tyrannosaurs continued to evolve, and a gigantic tyrannosaur species crossed back into North America 68 million years ago, resulting in Tyrannosaurus rex, Zelenitsky said. 'The success and diversity of tyrannosaurs is thanks to a few migrations between the two continents, starting with Khankhuuluu,' she said. 'Tyrannosaurs were in the right place at the right time. They were able to take advantage of moving between continents, likely encountering open niche spaces, and quickly evolving to become large, efficient killing machines.' The new findings support previous research suggesting that Tyrannosaurus rex's direct ancestor originated in Asia and migrated to North America via a land bridge and underscore the importance of Asia in the evolutionary success of the tyrannosaur family, said Cassius Morrison, a doctoral student of paleontology at University College London. Morrison was not involved in the new research. 'The new species provides essential data and information in part of the family tree with few species, helping us to understand the evolutionary transition of tyrannosaurs from small/ medium predators to large apex predators,' Morrison wrote in an email. The study also shows that the Alioramini group, once considered distant relatives, were very close cousins of T. rex. What makes the fossils of the new species so crucial is their age — 20 million years older than T. rex, said Steve Brusatte, professor and personal chair of Palaeontology and Evolution at the University of Edinburgh. Brusatte was not involved in the new study. 'There are so few fossils from this time, and that is why these scientists describe it as 'murky,'' Brusatte said. 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'We know so much more about tyrannosaurs now,' Carr said. 'A lot of these historical specimens are definitely worth their weight in gold for a second look.' When the fossils were collected half a century ago, they were only briefly described at the time, Brusatte said. 'So many of us in the paleontology community knew that these Mongolian fossils were lurking in museum drawers, waiting to be studied properly, and apt to tell their own important part of the tyrannosaur story,' he said. 'It's almost like there was a non-disclosure agreement surrounding these fossils, and it's now expired, and they can come out and tell their story.'
