The history of Crete goes back to the 7th millennium BC, preceding the ancient Minoan civilization by more than four thousand years. The palace-based Minoan civilization was the first civilization in Europe. After the Minoan civilization was devastated by the Thera (Santorini) eruption, Crete developed an Ancient Greece-influenced organization of city-states, then successively became part of the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Venetian Republic, the Ottoman Empire, an autonomous state, and the modern state of Greece. Excavations in South Crete in 2008–2009 revealed stone tools at least 130,000 years old. This was a sensational discovery, as the previously accepted earliest sea crossing in the Mediterranean was thought to occur around 12,000 BC. This suggests that the island may have been visited by archaic humans many thousands of years ago. Stone tools indicate that the is
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