Aris Poulianos - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Aris Poulianos is a Greek anthropologist and archaeologist.

Early life and career

Before becoming an anthropologist, Poulianos fought during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

as a member of ELAS

ELAS

ELAS may refer to:*The Greek People's Liberation Army, World War II Greek Resistance group*The Equitable Life Assurance Society, a life insurance company in the United Kingdom...

from 1942 up until 1943. During the Greek Civil War

Greek Civil War

The Greek Civil War was fought from 1946 to 1949 between the Greek governmental army, backed by the United Kingdom and United States, and the Democratic Army of Greece , the military branch of the Greek Communist Party , backed by Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania...

, he fought on the side of the DSE from 1948 up until 1949. After the war, Poulianos studied biology at Queens College, New York and then anthropology in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

.

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

Anthropometry refers to the measurement of the human individual...

studies of a sample of present-day Greek people. In 1965, he returned to Greece as a researcher. In 1971, Poulianos founded the Anthropological Association of Greece, which is now run by his son. 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.

Archanthropus of Petralona

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

Petralona

Petralona is a neighborhood of Athens, Greece located between Thiseio and Kallithea. Athenians refer to Petralona either as Ano Petralona or Kato Petralona, where Ano Petralona is the area between the hill of Filopappou and the railway and Kato Petralona the area between the railway and Piraeus...

, 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. Poulianos would ultimately study the remains, name the hominid Archanthropus europeaus petraloniensis, and estimate its age to be around 700,000 years old.

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 measurements and ultimately dated the age of the skull to between 160,000 and 240,000 years old. However, Poulianos states that his excavations in the cave since 1968 provide evidence of human occupation from the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

era. The Petralona hominid, specifically, was located in a stratigraphic layer containing the most amount of 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 press reports claimed to be 800,000 years old.

Today, most academics who have analyzed the Petralona remains classify the hominid as Homo erectus

Homo erectus

Homo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived from the end of the Pliocene epoch to the later Pleistocene, about . The species originated in Africa and spread as far as India, China and Java. There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H...

. However, the Archanthropus of Petralona has also been classified as a Neanderthal (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) and as an early generic class of Homo sapiens. Some authors, on the other hand, believe that the Petralona cranium is derived from a unique class of hominids different from Homo erectus.

Homo erectus trilliensis

In September 1995, Poulianos presented a calcified tibia

Tibia

The tibia , shinbone, or shankbone is the larger and stronger of the two bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates , and connects the knee with the ankle bones....

found in Triglia

Triglia

Triglia 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. Population 5,888 . The seat of the municipality was in Nea Triglia....

, Chalkidiki, 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 regarding human evolution.

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.

Sources

Catling, H.W. "Archaeology in Greece, 1981-82", Archaeological Reports, No. 28 (1981 - 1982), pp. 3-62.
Curtis Runnels, Curtis and van Andel, Tjeerd H. "The Lower and Middle Paleolithic of Thessaly, Greece", Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 299-317.
Curtis Runnels, Curtis and van Andel, Tjeerd H. "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.

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