First Neanderthal activity found on Greek island: study

Scientists have for the first time found evidence of Neanderthals on the Greek island of Naxos, pushing back human activity in the Aegean by thousands of years, a new study shows.

"The excavation... has produced the kind of robust data required to support a claim for earlier Paleolithic cultural activity in the Aegean basin," the team of anthropologists and archaeologists wrote in the Science Advances journal, released online late Wednesday.

"The data...indicate that the Aegean was accessible to archaic and modern humans tens of millennia earlier than previously thought."