|
History Of Crete
The history of Crete goes back to the 7th millennium BC, preceding the ancient Minoan civilization by more than four millennia. The Minoan civilization was the first civilization in Europe. During the Iron Age, Crete developed an Ancient Greece-influenced organization of city-states, then successively became part of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Venetian Republic, the Ottoman Empire, an autonomous state, and the modern state of Greece. Prehistoric Crete Excavations in South Crete in 2008–2009 revealed stone tools at least 130,000 years old, including bifacial ones of Acheulean type. This was a sensational discovery, as the previously accepted earliest sea crossing in the Mediterranean was thought to occur around 12,000 BC. This suggests that the island may have been visited by archaic humans during the Middle Pleistocene.T.F. Strasser, E. Panagopoulou, C.N. Runnels, P.M. Murray, N. Thompson, P. Karkanas, F.W. McCoy, K.W. WegmanStone Age seafaring in the Mediterr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knossos Bull Leaping Fresco
Knossos (; , ; Linear B: ''Ko-no-so'') is a Bronze Age archaeological site in Crete. The site was a major centre of the Minoan civilization and is known for its association with the Greek myth of Theseus and the minotaur. It is located on the outskirts of Heraklion, and remains a popular tourist destination. Knossos is considered by many to be the oldest city in Europe. Knossos is dominated by the monumental Palace of Minos. Like other Minoan palaces, this complex of buildings served as a combination religious and administrative centre rather than a royal residence. The earliest parts of the palace were built around 1900 BC in an area that had been used for ritual feasting since the Neolithic. The palace was continually renovated and expanded over the next five centuries until its final destruction around 1350 BC. The site was first excavated by Minos Kalokairinos in 1877. In 1900, Arthur Evans, Sir Arthur Evans undertook more extensive excavations which unearthed most of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Pleistocene
The Late Pleistocene is an unofficial Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale in chronostratigraphy, also known as the Upper Pleistocene from a Stratigraphy, stratigraphic perspective. It is intended to be the fourth division of the Pleistocene Epoch within the ongoing Quaternary Period. It is currently defined as the time between 129,000 and c. 11,700 years ago. The late Pleistocene equates to the proposed Tarantian Age of the geologic time scale, preceded by the officially ratified Chibanian (commonly known as the Middle Pleistocene). The beginning of the Late Pleistocene is the transition between the end of the Penultimate Glacial Period and the beginning of the Last Interglacial around 130,000 years ago (corresponding with the beginning of Marine Isotope Stage 5). The Late Pleistocene ends with the termination of the Younger Dryas, some 10th millennium BC, 11,700 years ago when the Holocene Epoch began. The term Upper Pleistocene is currently in use as a p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cyclades
The CYCLADES computer network () was a French research network created in the early 1970s. It was one of the pioneering networks experimenting with the concept of packet switching and, unlike the ARPANET, was explicitly designed to facilitate internetworking. The CYCLADES network was the first to make the hosts responsible for the reliable delivery of data, rather than this being a centralized service of the network itself. Datagrams were exchanged on the network using transport protocols that do not guarantee reliable delivery, but only attempt best-effort. To empower the network leaves the hosts to perform error-correction, the network ensured end-to-end protocol transparency, a concept later to be known as the end-to-end principle. This simplified network design, reduced network latency, and reduced the opportunities for single point failures. The experience with these concepts led to the design of key features of the Internet Protocol in the ARPANET project. The network ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neolithic Period
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts of the world. This "Neolithic package" included the introduction of farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of settlement. The term 'Neolithic' was coined by Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. The Neolithic began about 12,000 years ago, when farming appeared in the Epipalaeolithic Near East and Mesopotamia, and later in other parts of the world. It lasted in the Near East until the transitional period of the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) from about 6,500 years ago (4500 BCE), marked by the development of metallurgy, leading up to the Bronze Age and Iron Age. In other places, th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Before Present
Before Present (BP) or "years before present (YBP)" is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology, and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Because the "present" time changes, standard practice is to use 1January 1950 as the commencement date (epoch) of the age scale, with 1950 being labelled as the "standard year". The abbreviation "BP" has been interpreted retrospectively as "Before Physics", which refers to the time before nuclear weapons testing artificially altered the proportion of the carbon isotopes in the atmosphere, which scientists must account for when using radiocarbon dating for dates of origin that may fall after this year. In a convention that is not always observed, many sources restrict the use of BP dates to those produced with radiocarbon dating; the alternative notation "RCYBP" stands for the explicit "radio carbon years before present". Usage The BP scale is s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neolithic
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts of the world. This "Neolithic package" included the History of agriculture, introduction of farming, domestication of animals, and change from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one of sedentism, settlement. The term 'Neolithic' was coined by John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, Sir John Lubbock in 1865 as a refinement of the three-age system. The Neolithic began about 12,000 years ago, when farming appeared in the Epipalaeolithic Near East and Mesopotamia, and later in other parts of the world. It lasted in the Near East until the transitional period of the Chalcolithic (Copper Age) from about 6,500 years ago (4500 BCE), marked by the development ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic (Ancient Greek language, Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymously, especially for outside northern Europe, and for the corresponding period in Epipaleolithic Near East, the Levant and Epipaleolithic Caucasus, Caucasus. The Mesolithic has different time spans in different parts of Eurasia. It refers to the final period of hunter-gatherer cultures in Europe and the Middle East, between the end of the Last Glacial Maximum and the Neolithic Revolution. In Europe it spans roughly 15,000 to 5,000 Before Present, BP; in the Middle East (the Epipalaeolithic Near East) roughly 20,000 to 10,000 Before Present, BP. The term is less used of areas farther east, and not at all beyond Eurasia and North Africa. The type of culture associated with the Mesolithic varies between areas, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cretan Owl
The Cretan owl (''Athene cretensis'') is an extinct species of owl from the Pleistocene of the island of Crete, in the eastern Mediterranean. It was first named by P.D.M. Weesie in a paper in 1982. In life, it would have been at least 60 cm tall, considerably larger than the 22 cm long little owl (''Athene noctua'') and appears to have been terrestrially adapted, with relatively short wings and long legs (though they were proportionally shorter than those of the burrowing owl). Its primary prey was likely the endemic mouse A mouse (: mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus'' ... species '' Mus minotaurus'', as evidenced by the numerous owl pellets containing it recovered from the caves from which the bones of ''A. cretensis'' were found.M. Pavia, C. Mourer-Chauvir�An overview of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cretan Shrew
The Cretan shrew (''Crocidura zimmermanni'') is a species of mammal in the family Soricidae. It is endemic to the island of Crete, Greece. Taxonomy and evolution ''Crocidura russula zimmermanni'' was first described as a subspecies of '' C. russula'' in 1953, and reconsidered as a full species by Vogel et al in 1986 on the basis of their distinct karyotype. The Cretan shrew has 34 pairs of chromosomes, while the other species examined in the study had 40. It may be a descendant of the extinct '' Crocidura kornfeldi'', the first ''Crocidura'' shrew to colonize Europe, which was distributed throughout central and southern Europe during the Pliocene and Pleistocene. It likely reached the island by rafting at some point in the early Pleistocene. It has remained extant on the island, while contemporaneous Cretan mammals such as mice, dwarf elephants, eight species of '' Candiacervus'' deer, and the Cretan otter went extinct. Unlike many small island mammals, it did not exhibit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cretan Otter
The Cretan otter ''(Lutrogale cretensis)'' is an extinct otter that was endemic to Crete during the Pleistocene. Taxonomy It was a close relative of the smooth-coated otter ''(L. perspicillata)'', whom today lives only in southern Asia but had a wider distribution in the past. The Cretan otter is the only carnivoran known from the Pleistocene of Crete. Its remains are known from only one locality (Liko Cave). Description The Cretan otter was similar in length to the smooth-coated otter, around long, but was more robustly built and slightly heavier. The Cretan otter shows more terrestrial adaptations than both the smooth-coated otter and the Eurasian otter, though not to the extent seen in otters of the genus ''Aonyx ''Aonyx'' is a genus of otters, containing three species, the African clawless otter, the Congo clawless otter, and the Asian small-clawed otter. The word ''aonyx'' means "clawless", derived from the prefix '' a-'' ("without") and '' onyx'' ( ...''. Its skele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palaeoloxodon Creutzburgi
''Palaeoloxodon creutzburgi'' is an extinct species of elephant known from fossil found on the island Crete. It is a descendant of the large mainland straight-tusked elephant (''Palaeoloxodon antiquus''). It is known from localities across the island, though known material is fragmentary.Sen, S. (2017)A review of the Pleistocene dwarfed elephants from the Aegean islands, and their paleogeographic context – Fossil Imprint, 73(1-2): 76–92, Praha. ISSN 2533-4050 (print), ISSN 2533-4069 (online). ''P. chaniensis'' from Stylos and in Vamos cave, Chania, west Crete is considered to be a junior synonym of ''P. creutzburgi''. It had undergone insular dwarfism, being approximately 40% of the size of its mainland ancestor, and was around the size of the living Asian elephant, with an estimated body mass of around . Like its ancestor, it was probably a generalist feeder. It lived during the Middle-Late Pleistocene, alongside the radiation of '' Candiacervus'' deer endemic to the island, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dwarf Elephant
Dwarf elephants are prehistoric members of the order Proboscidea which, through the process of allopatric speciation on islands, evolved much smaller body sizes (around shoulder height) in comparison with their immediate ancestors. Dwarf elephants are an example of insular dwarfism, the phenomenon whereby large terrestrial vertebrates (usually mammals) that colonize islands evolve dwarf forms, a phenomenon attributed to adaptation to resource-poor environments and lack of predation and competition. Fossil remains of dwarf elephants have been found on the Mediterranean islands of Cyprus, Malta, Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, the Cyclades Islands and the Dodecanese Islands, which are mostly members of the genus ''Palaeoloxodon'', descending from the large tall straight-tusked elephant (''Palaeoloxodon antiquus'') of mainland Europe'','' though two species represent dwarf mammoths. Dwarf species of elephants and '' Stegodon'' have been found on the islands of Indonesia and the Philippi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
