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Occam’s razor, archeoprimatology, and the ‘blue’ monkeys of Thera: a reply to Pareja et al. (2020)

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A News and Perspectives to this article was published on 05 September 2020

Abstract

Recently, Pareja et al. (Primates, 61:159–168, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-019-00778-12020) published a report suggesting that the monkeys represented by Minoans in Room 6 of Building Complex Beta at Akrotiri, Thera (present-day Greece) allegedly represented Hanuman or gray langurs (Semnopithecus spp.). This conjecture was based only on the posture of the tail, as it might be reminiscent of those observed in these Asian monkeys. In order to examine this hypothesis, we performed a thorough analysis of tail postures in both langurs and vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus spp.), a detailed description of body and facial characteristics of the Minoan painted monkeys, and an exhaustive review of the current evidence regarding Minoan archeoprimatological frescos and portable objects as well as proposed cultural and trading contacts between the Bronze Age Aegean, Egypt, the Levant, Near East, and the Indus River Valley. Our findings show that their assumption is unfounded and that the monkeys depicted on the walls of the referred fresco, as well as others related frescoes from Thera and Crete, are of African origin and more specifically belong to Chlorocebus spp. and Papio spp. In all cases, hopefully Pareja et al. (2020) and this reply will serve to stimulate further archeoprimatological studies.

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the support of the personnel at the Historical-Archaeological Library of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the Biblioteca della Scuola Archaeologica Italiana di Atene, the Begler Library of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign library as well as the members of the Herakleion Archaeological Museum (Iraklio, Crete), the Museum of Prehistoric Thera (Fira, Santorini), the National Archaeological Museum in Athens, and the archaeological sites of Akrotiri and Knossos. BU received an I.K.Y. Post-doctoral Fellowship (Greek State Scholarship Foundation [I.K.Y.] of the Ministry of Education of the Hellenic Republic) and travel support to Crete by the School of Biology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Thanks also go to the associate editor and two anonymous reviewers for their comments that serve to improve an early draft of this manuscript.

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  1. Center for Anthropology, Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research, Caracas, Venezuela

    Bernardo Urbani

  2. School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece

    Dionisios Youlatos

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  1. Bernardo Urbani
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Correspondence to Bernardo Urbani.

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Urbani, B., Youlatos, D. Occam’s razor, archeoprimatology, and the ‘blue’ monkeys of Thera: a reply to Pareja et al. (2020). Primates 61, 757–765 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-020-00825-2

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