The latest archaeological findings unearthed in Greece over the past year are in the top 10 discoveries of 2010 list, published in the latest issue of Archaeology Magazine, a publication of the Archaeological Institute of America.

The findings in question are Palaeolithic tools discovered in Plakias Rethymno prefecture) on the large south Aegean island of Crete.

According to the magazine, “the discovery of stone tools at two sites on the island of Crete that are between 130,000 and 700,000 years old was announced by a research team led by Thomas Strasser of Providence College and Eleni Panagopoulou of the Greek ministry of culture.

The tools resemble those made by Homo heidelbergensis and Homo erectus, showing that one of these early human ancestors boated across at least 40 miles of open sea to reach the island, the earliest indirect evidence of seafaring. ana-mpa

“If hominins could move around the Mediterranean before 130,000 years ago, they could cross other bodies of water as well,” said team member Curtis Runnels of Boston University, who helped analyse the tools.”