Aris Poulianos (born 24 July 1924) is a Greek

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

and

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

Early life and career

Before becoming an anthropologist, Poulianos fought during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

as a member of

ELAS The Greek People's Liberation Army ( el, Ελληνικός Λαϊκός Απελευθερωτικός Στρατός (ΕΛΑΣ), ''Ellinikós Laïkós Apeleftherotikós Stratós'' (ELAS) was the military arm of the left-wing National Liberat ...

from 1942 up until 1943. During the

Greek Civil War The Greek Civil War ( el, ο Eμφύλιος �όλεμος ''o Emfýlios'' 'Pólemos'' "the Civil War") took place from 1946 to 1949. It was mainly fought against the established Kingdom of Greece, which was supported by the United Kingdom ...

, he fought on the side of the DSE from 1948 up until 1949. After the war, Poulianos studied biology at

Queens College, New York Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body representing more than 170 ...

and then anthropology in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

. He earned his Ph.D in Moscow under the supervision of anthropologist F. G. Debets in 1961 with a dissertation on ''The Origin of the Greeks'', a work based on

anthropometric Anthropometry () refers to the measurement of the human individual. An early tool of physical anthropology, it has been used for identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variation, in paleoanthropology and in various atte ...

studies of a sample of present-day Greek people. In 1965, he returned to Greece as a researcher.Aris N. Poulianos - Biographic Note
In 1971, Poulianos founded the ''Anthropological Association of Greece'', which is now run by his son, Nikos. This organization has had a long-standing dispute with the Greek Ministry of Culture, after the latter's attempts to evict the association from the excavation site in the Petralona Cave, which was conceded to them after a 1981 contract. In 1976, Poulianos founded the Department of Paleoanthropology-Spelaeology, which functions within the Greek Ministry of Culture.

Petralona skull

Since the 1970s, Poulianos has investigated early hominid remains found in a cave near

Petralona Petralona ( el, Πετράλωνα, ) is a neighborhood of Athens, Greece. Athenians further subdivide the area into Ano (upper) Petralona or Kato (Lower) Petralona, where Ano Petralona is the area between the Philopappos Hill and the railway and ...

, Greece, and has become known for controversial claims over their age. According to Poulianos, the Petralona Cave was accidentally discovered in 1959 by local villagers searching for a spring in the mountainside. The Petralona skull, specifically, was discovered in 1960 when it was removed from a rock in the cave. Early estimates at the time placed the age of the hominid remains to around 70,000 years old.Aris N. Poulianos.
Pre-Sapiens Man in Greece
'. In ''Current Anthropology'', Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 287-288. June 1981. Poulianos would ultimately study the remains, name the hominid ''Archanthropus europeaus petraloniensis'', and estimate its age to be around 700,000 years old.Francis Spencer. ''History of Physical Anthropology: An Encyclopedia''. Taylor & Francis, p. 454. 1997. . During the 1980s, the age of the Petralona hominid estimated by Poulianos was challenged by an article in ''Nature''. The scientists involved used

electron spin resonance Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) or electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy is a method for studying materials that have unpaired electrons. The basic concepts of EPR are analogous to those of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), but the spi ...

measurements and dated the age of the skull to between 160,000 and 240,000 years old (research based on the detailed analysis of the Cave's stratigraphy has proven that the original chronography of the skull is ultimately closer to the age of 700 000 years claimed by Dr. Poulianos). However, Poulianos states that his excavations in the cave since 1968 provide evidence of human occupation from the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

era. The Petralona hominid, specifically, was located in a stratigraphic layer containing the most tools and traces of habitation. Poulianos states that the age of the overall layer is approximately 670,000 years old, based on electron spin resonance measurements. Further excavations at Petralona revealed two human skeletons that were dated to be 800,000 years old. Today, most academics who have analyzed the Petralona remains classify the hominid as

Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' (; meaning "upright man") is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Several human species, such as '' H. heidelbergensis'' and '' H. antecessor' ...

. However, the ''Archanthropus'' of Petralona has also been classified as a Neanderthal (''

Homo neanderthalensis Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an Extinction, extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ag ...

'') and as an early generic class of

Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, culture, ...

. Some authors, on the other hand, believe that the Petralona cranium is derived from a unique class of hominids different from Homo erectus. Runnels and van Andel summarise the situation as such : "The only known hominid fossil in Greece that may be relevant is the Petralona hominid, found by chance in 1960 in a deep cavern in the

Chalkidiki Chalkidiki (; el, Χαλκιδική , also spelled Halkidiki, is a peninsula and regional unit of Greece, part of the region of Central Macedonia, in the geographic region of Macedonia in Northern Greece. The autonomous Mount Athos region co ...

. Controversy surrounds the interpretation of this cranium, and it has been variously classified as ''Homo erectus'', as a classic Neanderthal (''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), and as an early representative of ''Homo sapiens'' in a generalized sense (Day 1986: 91-95). The consensus among paleoanthropologists today is that the cranium belongs to an archaic hominid distinguished from ''Homo erectus'', and from both the classic Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans (Day 1986: 95; Stringer, Howell, and Melenitis 1979). Whatever the final classification may be, the cranium has been provisionally dated to ca. 200-400 kyr (Day 1986: 94 Hennig et al. 1981, 1982; Wintle and Jacobs 1982), and it is thus possible that the Petralona hominid represents the lineage responsible for the Thessalian

Lower Paleolithic The Lower Paleolithic (or Lower Palaeolithic) is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 3 million years ago when the first evidence for stone tool production and use by hominins appears in ...

sites."

''Homo erectus trilliensis''

In September 1995, Poulianos presented a calcified

tibia The tibia (; ), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outside of the tibia); it connects ...

found in

Triglia Triglia ( el, Τρίγλια) is a former municipality in Chalkidiki, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Nea Propontida, of which it is a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 121.959 km2 ...

, which he claimed belonged to a Homo erectus form he termed ''Homo erectus trilliensis'', and which he dated to 11 million years before the present. Poulianos believes that his discovery may challenge the

Out of Africa theory In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans, also called the "Out of Africa" theory (OOA), recent single-origin hypothesis (RSOH), replacement hypothesis, or recent African origin model (RAO), is the dominant model of the ...

regarding human evolution.Hellenic Resources Network. "ΣΤΗΝ ΤΡΙΓΛΙΑ ΧΑΛΚΙΔΙΚΗΣ ΒΡΕΘΗΚΕ Η ΑΠΟΛΙΘΩΜΕΝΗ ΚΝΗΜΗ ΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΥ 11 ΕΚΑΤΟΜΜΥΡΙΩΝ ΧΡΟΝΩΝ-ΕΙΧΕ ΗΛΙΚΙΑ 25 ΕΤΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΥΨΟΣ 1.20". ''Macedonian Press Agency: News in Greek'' (November 29, 1996)
Accessed: 26 October 2008.

Published works

*1960 - "The Origin of Greeks"; Ph.D Thesis at Moscow Institute of Anthropology; Reprinted in Athens in 1962, 1965, 1968, and 1988. *1961 - "Discovery of a Skull of Palaeolithic Man in Greece"; ''Voprossi Anthropologhii'', 8:162. *1963 - "New Palaeolithic Finds of Greece";'' Sov. Arheologhia'', 2: 227-229. *1965 - "On the Position of the Petralona Man within Palaeoanthropi"; ''Sov. Ethnografia'', 2: 91-99. *1967 - "The Place of the Petralonian Man among Palaeoanthropi"; ''Anthropos'' C 19, (N.S.11): 216-221. in ''Akten Anthropologischen Kongresses Brno''. *1971 - "Petralona: A Middle Pleistocene Cave in Greece"; ''Archaeology'', 24: 6-11. *1975 - "Palaeoanthropological excavations at Petralona. ''Prakt. Archaeol.''; Et.: 131-136. Athens. *1977 - "Stratigraphy and Age of the Petralonian Archanthropus"; Anthropos, 4: 37-46. Athens. *1980 - "The Petralona Finds"; Thessaloniki. Yearbook of the Society of Macedonian Studies: 65-76. *1981 - "Pre-sapiens Man in Greece"; Current Anthropology, 22 (3): 287 - 288. *1981 - "Climatic Fluctuations at Petralona Cave"; Terra Cognita.

References

*Curtis Runnels and Tjeerd H. van Andel, "The Early Stone Age of the Nomos of Preveza: Landscape and Settlement", ''Hesperia Supplements'', Vol. 32, Landscape Archaeology in Southern Epirus, Greece 1 (2003), pp. 47–134.

External links