The first beach BBQ – 12,000 years ago

[emad]

From Michael Theodoulou in Nicosia


http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,245760,00.jpg
Find at tourist resort provides details of the seafarers who predated Odysseus


A BUNGEE jumping spot at a Cypriot beach popular with British tourists is the site of an ancient campsite that has yielded what archaeologists say may be the earliest evidence of Mediterranean seafaring.

Fragments of rudimentary imported stone implements thought to be up to 12,000 years old have been found near Nissi Beach in Ayia Napa.

The flints, which may have been used at some of the island’s first beach barbecues, are different to any known locally and pre-date Cyprus’s first inhabitants, which settled from the 9th millenium BC, by more than 1,000 years.

There were similar finds at a second site at Aspros near the Akamas Peninsula on the western coast of the island. There is no evidence of any ancient building at either site. This suggests that they were used as temporary camping spots by ancient mariners on forays from what is now Syria, Lebanon and Turkey.

"The sites were located in good places for those making seasonal visits," Pavlos Flourentzos, director of Cyprus’s department of antiquities, told The Times.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-1884776,00.html


More 'Satan's Work'?

[displacedtexan]

1. Hike out your trash!

Fortunately for us, those vacationers didn't heed the campers' motto and left some stuff behind!