My Explorations of the Mediterranean

I recently completed a Mediterranean Cruise from the coast of Spain, to the coast of France, and finally to the coast of Italy. With this cruise I have now visited most of the countries of the Mediterranean Sea--save those of Africa on the Southern end. I have been to Israel, Syria, Turkey, Greece, Italy, France and Spain! I now have the eastern, northern, and western Mediterranean pretty much covered. Only the Southern shore remains. So what have I learned from my travels? Let's start with the prehistory of the Mediterranean area. Modern human fossils ( homo sapien sapien) have been discovered in Israel dating from 90,000 years ago. These modern humans came out of Africa across the Levant. There is some debate about it, but most paleoanthropologists believe this strand of modern humans, for unknown reasons, died out. They would have encountered Homo Neanderthalis (the Neanderthals) before they ceased to exist. The Neanderthals had been in Israel and Southern Europe since about 400,000 years ago. The next group of modern humans to enter the Mediterranean area would have come about 43,000 years ago. This was the group that came out of Africa around 55,000 BC and crossed the southern most tip of the Red Sea into modern Saudi Arabia. This exodus is known as the famous Out of Africa Theory. These are the modern humans who were us! They are the ones who conquered the world and eventually inhabited every part of the globe. They were Hunter Gatherers who spread throughout the Northern Mediterranean region and became known as the Cromagnons. These were the modern humans who painted the well known animal pictures on the cave walls of Spain and Southern France. They are also the ones who interbred with the Neanderthals. The Neanderthals eventually died out in Spain around 30,000 BC. After civilization began in nearby Mesopotamia (12,000 BC), these modern humans adopted agriculture and no longer had to constantly move around as hunter gatherers. Due to more stationary lives, they then developed farming in the area around 8000 BC. From these farming communities came the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean-- the Minoans, the Myceneans, and the Greeks. Fortunatlely in my travels I have seen the ruins and fossils of all three of these ancient civilizations. Eventually, by 800 BC the Greeks conquered the entire area and and the Greeks ruled until they were conquered by the Romans. The Romans went on to establish the vast Roman Empire which lasted to almost 500 AD. ( Have a question? A comment? Discussion?)