Message #114093

[Bianca]

150,000 YEARS



With a low population and dry climate, Libya's secrets are well preserved. Historians say the vast desert was once savannah that supported small communities of which little is known.

"We are discovering more about one of the most interesting aspects of human pre-history -- when and how Homo Sapiens left Africa," said Elena Garcea of Cassino University in Italy.

With new technology for dating objects, her team has found evidence of human habitation in Libya up to 150,000 years ago and is unearthing details of little-known Early-Middle Stone Age societies.

Key discoveries were made in recent years by French researcher Andre Laronde at the ancient Greek port of Apollonia in Cyrenaica, birthplace of the philosopher and mathematician Erastosthenes. In the south, an Italian team has studied rock art to shed light on prehistoric hunter-gatherer communities.

A Sicilian group is working on the wreck of a 17th century Venetian warship, the Tigre, scuppered by its captain after a storm drove it south and the Libyan Karamanli fleet gave chase.

The team's head, Sebastiano Tusa, says the ship is yielding useful information on the period when Venice's power waned and Turkish forces threatened its eastern Mediterranean possessions.

But Tusa's dream is to find a land settlement on the Libyan coast that proves there was a sea route via North Africa for ships travelling between the Western and Eastern Mediterranean in the second millennium B.C.

"I'm sure there will be something proving a connection between Crete and the Aegean and Cyrenaica," he said.

Libya's government says that as more sites are opened up, it wants to avoid the mass tourism of Egypt and Tunisia and its emphasis on history will help draw a smaller number of discerning travellers.

"We will discourage mass tourism which would ... be a disgrace towards this fantastically rich and diverse cultural heritage," said Anag.