By Richard Ingham
Paris - Archaeologists have uncovered the earliest known remains of human habitation by the coast, a finding that may explain how humans ventured beyond Africa at the start of their planetary odyssey.
Mussel shells, sharpened pieces of red ochre and stone micro-tools found in a sea cave in South Africa suggest that Homo sapiens headed for the beach quite soon after emerging from the savannah, they say.
By stumbling upon the rich harvest of the sea, Man found the means to explore beyond Africa, sustaining himself through maritime edibles by probing along the coast, they suggest.
Until now, the earliest evidence of human settlement by the coast dates from 120 000 years ago - about 80 000 years after the approximate time when, according to fossil evidence, H. sapiens arose in the grasslands of East Africa.
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Experts have long suspected that coastal migration must have occurred earlier than this.
The problem, though, has been finding proof to back this belief.
Turn the clock back to an era between 195,000 and 135,000 years ago, and you will find Earth in the grip of an Ice Age.
So much water was locked up in glaciers that the sea level was as much as 125 metres lower than today. When the glaciers eventually retreated, the sea rose once more, swamping coastlines and sweeping away the traces of habitation.
One remarkable location that survived, though, was a cave overlooking the Indian Ocean in coastal cliffs at Pinnacle Point, near South Africa's Mossel Bay.
The cave is so high that, even now, it is 15 metres above the sea. At the time when it was inhabited, it was located within five to 10 kilometres of the coast.
Curtis Marean of Arizona State University led a team that sifted through the cave's walls and floor and found remains of hearths, of some two dozen shellfish, mainly brown mussels, as well as 57 pieces of ochre pigment, some of them brilliant red, and nearly three dozen "bladelets", or tiny tools made of chipped stone.
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