The first humans came to Europe 1.4 million years ago
The oldest currently known human occupation of Europe lies near the town of Korolevo in western Ukraine. New findings by an international team led by Roman Garba from the Nuclear Physics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Institute of Archaeology of the CAS, Prague, have confirmed that the lowermost layer with the stone tools at Korolevo dates to 1.4 million years ago. Until now, the earliest inhabited location was thought to be Atapuerca in Spain, some 200,000 to 300,000 years later. The results, published in Nature, also show that early hominins took advantage of warm interglacial periods to colonise Europe from the east or southeast. A recent advance in mathematical modelling combined with applied nuclear physics has enabled the precise dating of the Korolevo’s earliest occupation. PhD student Lotta Ylä-Mella from Dpt. of Physical Geography and Geoecology was involved in determining the age of the sediments containing the stone tools.
Published Mar 12, 2024