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Seaborne movement underpins frontier research in prehistoric archaeology, including water-crossings in the context of human dispersals, and island colonisation. Yet, it also controls the degree of interaction between locations, which in turn is essential for investigating the properties of maritime networks. The onset of the Holocene (circa 12,000...
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... one of the largest islands in the Mediterranean, is situated approximately 100 km from the nearest Levantine coast and 60 km from the southern coast of Turkey (Figure 1). Cyprus plays a key role in early Mediterranean prehistory, as it has been insular since the Miocene (earlier than at least 5 million years ago); this entails that any archaeological evidence of early prehistoric human presence/activity on the island implies seaborne mobility. ...
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... terms of simulated trajectories departing from the mainland (Figures 3 and 4), trajectories from northern present-day Egypt move eastwards, parallel to the coast, towards the Levantine coast; whereas, trajectories from the Levantine coast move northwards, again parallel to the coast, towards present-day Syria and southern Turkey (see also Fig- ure 1). In addition, trajectories from southern Turkey move westwards and tend to be more variable, occupying all the straits between southern Turkey and norther Cyprus (some appearing to reach Cyprus); this pattern of more occupied space is less pronounced during Spring. ...
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... however, that no archaeological sites have been discovered in southern Turkey for that late Epipaleolithic/early Neolithic period; hence, any physical connectivity should not be necessarily interpreted as archaeological connectivity. In terms of successful drifting towards the mainland (Figures 9 and 10), drifting appears to be more successful during Fall and Summer, and from cape Agios Andreas at the northeastern tip of Cyprus towards southern Turkey; no simulated trajectory ended up at the Levantine coast. It is interesting to note that drifting during Spring appears to be rather unfavorable, as no simulated trajectories of the raft object reach the opposite coast ( Figure 10), and successful simulated trajectories of the surfboard object are rather few (Figure 9). ...
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... terms of successful drifting towards the mainland (Figures 9 and 10), drifting appears to be more successful during Fall and Summer, and from cape Agios Andreas at the northeastern tip of Cyprus towards southern Turkey; no simulated trajectory ended up at the Levantine coast. It is interesting to note that drifting during Spring appears to be rather unfavorable, as no simulated trajectories of the raft object reach the opposite coast ( Figure 10), and successful simulated trajectories of the surfboard object are rather few (Figure 9). In what follows, analysis pertains to the duration of successful trajectories, i.e., to the time passed since departure while the object was floating at sea. ...
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... what follows, analysis pertains to the duration of successful trajectories, i.e., to the time passed since departure while the object was floating at sea. Analysis is carried out in terms of distributions (relative frequency histograms) of travel times for the two objects across seasons (Figures 11-14). ...
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... departing from the mainland, simulated trip duration for both objects ( Figures 11 and 12) appears to be the shortest during Spring (shortest for the small raft), and the longest during Summer; during Winter and Fall, trip duration values range from 48 h (2 days) to 120 h (5 days) with more durations towards 5 days. When departing from Cyprus, simulated trajectories during Fall season appear to be the shortest for both types of vessels ( Figures 13 and 14), with most trips extending between 72 h (3 days) and 96 h (4 days). ...
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... departing from the mainland, simulated trip duration for both objects ( Figures 11 and 12) appears to be the shortest during Spring (shortest for the small raft), and the longest during Summer; during Winter and Fall, trip duration values range from 48 h (2 days) to 120 h (5 days) with more durations towards 5 days. When departing from Cyprus, simulated trajectories during Fall season appear to be the shortest for both types of vessels ( Figures 13 and 14), with most trips extending between 72 h (3 days) and 96 h (4 days). Trip duration during Winter is the longest for both objects; trip duration is longer than 4 days for the small raft ( Figure 14). ...
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... departing from Cyprus, simulated trajectories during Fall season appear to be the shortest for both types of vessels ( Figures 13 and 14), with most trips extending between 72 h (3 days) and 96 h (4 days). Trip duration during Winter is the longest for both objects; trip duration is longer than 4 days for the small raft ( Figure 14). Analysis lastly pertains to the overall percentage of successful trajectories corresponding to different departure regions (Figure 15). ...
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... duration during Winter is the longest for both objects; trip duration is longer than 4 days for the small raft ( Figure 14). Analysis lastly pertains to the overall percentage of successful trajectories corresponding to different departure regions (Figure 15). It appears that, overall, drifting success rates from the mainland are very small: success rates are smaller than 6% (during Fall) for the surfboard and smaller than 3.5% (during Fall) for the small raft (see top row of Figure 15); these numbers correspond to trajectories from departure location #5 in southern Turkey (Figure 2), where no relevant archaeological evidence of human occupation is known to date. ...
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... lastly pertains to the overall percentage of successful trajectories corresponding to different departure regions (Figure 15). It appears that, overall, drifting success rates from the mainland are very small: success rates are smaller than 6% (during Fall) for the surfboard and smaller than 3.5% (during Fall) for the small raft (see top row of Figure 15); these numbers correspond to trajectories from departure location #5 in southern Turkey (Figure 2), where no relevant archaeological evidence of human occupation is known to date. Success rates from locations #9 and #10 at the northern Levantine coast, where the archaeological record suggest human occupation during the period of interest, are significantly smaller than 0.5% (apart from a ~1% success rate for trajectories simulated for a small raft during Winter). ...
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... implies that, based on the 2014 data considered, drifting to Cyprus from the mainland should have been highly improbable. Figure 15. Percentage of successful trajectories for a surfboard (object #42) and a small raft (object #76) departing from source regions located off the mainland coast (top) and off the Cyprus coast (bottom). ...
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... drifting from Cyprus, success rates are much higher, especially for the departure region of Cape Agios Andreas, ranging during Summer from 16% for the surfboard to 40% for the small raft; during Fall, these rates drop to 17% for the surfboard to 14% for the small raft (see bottom row of Figure 15). Note, however, that the corresponding times at sea typically exceed 72 h (3 days), a fact that should also be considered when assessing the feasibility of the trip at the end. ...
Citations
... This southwest-northwest pattern of expansion might seem to contradict results from virtual passive drift-modeling that identified more support for paths to the northern coast of Cyprus from the southern coast of Türkiye compared to paths from northern locations in the Levant (52). However, there are several considerations that limit the relevance of comparing passive drifting and the terrestrial expansion patterns our models revealed for Cyprus following initial human arrival. ...
... However, there are several considerations that limit the relevance of comparing passive drifting and the terrestrial expansion patterns our models revealed for Cyprus following initial human arrival. First, the passive-drift models all had a low probability of reaching Cyprus, regardless of departure point (<0.06), and even the moderately more successful paths from southern Türkiye are not associated with any relevant archaeological sites dating to the late Epipaleolithic/early Neolithic period from which to define plausible departure points (52). Second, the available drift-model results are contingent on passive drifting, whereas our results support larger-scale crossings that would have required both active propulsion and directionality, similar to the inferences made for island-chain crossings from Wallacea to Sahul much earlier (2). ...
The antiquity of human dispersal into Mediterranean islands and ensuing coastal adaptation have remained largely unexplored due to the prevailing assumption that the sea was a barrier to movement and that islands were hostile environments to early hunter-gatherers [J. F. Cherry, T. P. Leppard, J. Isl. Coast. Archaeol. 13, 191–205 (2018), 10.1080/15564894.2016.1276489]. Using the latest archaeological data, hindcasted climate projections, and age-structured demographic models, we demonstrate evidence for early arrival (14,257 to 13,182 calendar years ago) to Cyprus and predicted that large groups of people (~1,000 to 1,375) arrived in 2 to 3 main events occurring within <100 y to ensure low extinction risk. These results indicate that the postglacial settlement of Cyprus involved only a few large scale, organized events requiring advanced watercraft technology. Our spatially debiased and Signor–Lipps-corrected estimates indicate rapid settlement of the island within <200 y, and expansion to a median of 4,000 to 5,000 people (0.36 to 0.46 km−2) in <11 human generations (<300 y). Our results do not support the hypothesis of inaccessible and inhospitable islands in the Mediterranean for pre agropastoralists, agreeing with analogous conclusions for other parts of the world [M. I. Bird et al., Sci. Rep. 9, 8220 (2019), 10.1038/s41598-019-42946-9]. Our results also highlight the need to revisit these questions in the Mediterranean and test their validity with new technologies, field methods, and data. By applying stochastic models to the Mediterranean region, we can place Cyprus and large islands in general as attractive and favorable destinations for paleolithic peoples.
... Further, the available dated material indicates a rapid establishment across the entire island within fewer than 200 years, with a general gradient of movement from the west to the east that approximately follows the precipitation gradient (Fig. S4). Irrespective of the locations of initial arrival (e.g., inferred from virtual sea-drifting experiments) (Kyriakidis et al. 2022), it is important to understand that we are modelling settlement processes, and not just movement through an area (e.g., Bradshaw et al. 2021). Furthermore, such a speedy settlement of the island would have likely resulted in a rapid modi cation of the insular landscape, potentially impacting the availability of subsistence resources (e.g., mammalian fauna) (Simmons 1999(Simmons , 2014. ...
The antiquity of human dispersal into Mediterranean islands and ensuing coastal adaptation have remained largely unexplored due to the prevailing assumption that the sea was a barrier to movement, and that islands were hostile environments to early hunter-gatherers (Cherry & Leppard 2018; Leppard et al. 2022). Using the latest archaeological data, hindcasted climate projections, and age-structured demographic models, we demonstrate clear evidence for early arrival (14,257 to 13,182 calendar years ago) to Cyprus, and predicted that large groups of people (~ 1,000 to 1,375) arrived in 2–3 main events occurring within < 100 years to ensure low extinction risk. These results indicate that the post-glacial settlement of Cyprus involved only a few large-scale, organised events requiring advanced watercraft technology. Our spatially debiased and Signor-Lipps-corrected estimates indicate rapid settlement of the island within < 200 years, and expansion to a median of 4,000–5,000 people (0.36–0.46 km− 2) in < 11 human generations (< 300 years). Our results do not support the hypothesis of inaccessible and inhospitable islands in the Mediterranean by pre-agropastoralists, agreeing with analogous conclusions for other parts of the world such as the Indo-Pacific (Bird et al. 2019; Bradshaw et al. 2019). Our results also highlight the need to revisit these questions in the Mediterranean and test their validity in light of new technologies, field methods, and data. By applying stochastic models based on both temporally and spatially explicit data for the first time to the Mediterranean region, we are able to place Cyprus and large islands in general as attractive and favourable destinations for palaeolithic peoples.
... Recent efforts to combat the siloing of researchers include the creation of the CAA Special interest group sharing the name of this session, as well as several other sessions and roundtables at past conferences (e.g. Kyriakidis et al. 2022;Slayton et al. 2022). In addition, this session seeks to build off outcomes of the CAST conference held at Stanford in 2022. ...
... Simulation-based computational models of seaborne movement, in particular, have been long ago used to test archaeological hypotheses related to colonisation, migration, and cultural contact; classical examples are simulation models for the colonization of Oceania and the Pacific. Kyriakidis et al. (2022) presents a recent example of sea-drifting simulation in the eastern Mediterranean context of the island of Cyprus. Key mobility-related research questions, however, remain open: these pertain to the feasibility for seaborne movement within a few days or within a season, to the spatiotemporal intensity of maritime mobility (number of seaborne trips) across a few generations, to the long-term effects of maritime mobility on population spatiotemporal dynamics, including colonisation and abandonment. ...
AI-on-Demand (AIOD) platform and its uses for cultural heritage
Archaeological evidence supports sporadic seafaring visits to the Eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus by Epipaleolithic hunter-gatherers over 12,000 years ago, followed by permanent settlements during the early Neolithic. The geographical origins of these early seafarers have so far remained elusive. By systematically analysing all available genomes from the late Pleistocene to early Holocene Near East (c. 14,000–7000 cal BCE), we provide a comprehensive overview of the genetic landscape of the early Neolithic Fertile Crescent and Anatolia and infer the likely origins of three recently published genomes from Kissonerga-Mylouthkia (Cypriot Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, c. 7600–6800 cal BCE). These appear to derive roughly 80% of their ancestry from Aceramic Neolithic Central Anatolians residing in or near the Konya plain, and the remainder from a genetically basal Levantine population. Based on genome-wide weighted ancestry covariance analysis, we infer that this admixture event took place roughly between 14,000 and 10,000 BCE, coinciding with the transition from the Cypriot late Epipaleolithic to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA). Additionally, we identify strong genetic affinities between the examined Cypro-LPPNB individuals and later northwestern Anatolians and the earliest European Neolithic farmers. Our results inform archaeological evidence on prehistoric demographic processes in the Eastern Mediterranean, providing important insights into early seafaring, maritime connections, and insular settlement.
