Early humans may have colonized Ukraine as the first part of Europe

Molecular dating reveals that an area in Ukraine was occupied by humans 1.4 million years ago, making it one of the oldest human remains in Europe, and possibly the oldest.

The ruins, located in Korolevo in western Ukraine, have been studied since the 1970s. Numerous stone tools were found buried in layers of sediment next to outcrops of volcanic rock suitable for tool making.

“It was like a magnet that drew people to it, and they were camping nearby,” he says. Roman Galba At the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague.

No bones have been found because the soil was too acidic to preserve bones, but hominins homo erectusa species that evolved about 2 million years ago and spread from Africa to Europe and Asia.

It is clear that early humans were present at the Korolevo sites repeatedly over hundreds of thousands of years, but we do not know exactly when they were present. But Garba's team has now used a technique called cosmogenic nuclide dating to date the oldest layer containing the tools to 1.4 million years ago.

This method relies on cosmic rays that are energetic enough to split atomic nuclei and create unusual isotopes. However, these cosmic rays do not penetrate deeply into solid objects, so these isotopes form only in exposed areas.

When an object is buried, the radioactive isotopes produced by cosmic rays decay into other isotopes, making it possible to determine when the object was buried.

Another early human site in Dmanisi, Georgia, is estimated to be 1.7 million years old, and other sites in France and Spain are about 1.2 million years old. This suggests that early humans migrated from Africa through Georgia into Ukraine and then west to other parts of Europe, Galba said, although some crossed the Bosphorus Strait in Turkey. There is a possibility that it was.

Some humans are crossed the Strait of Gibraltar It arrived in Spain when sea levels were lower than it is now, and then migrated east to other parts of Europe, but there is no evidence to support this, Galba said.

While parts of Georgia are geographically in Europe and the entire country is politically considered part of Europe, the Dmanisi site is geographically located in Asia, Garba said. As such, he and his team consider Korolevo to be the oldest reliably dated human site in Europe.

“Korolevo is, to our knowledge, the oldest confirmed human presence in Europe,” the paper says.

“I agree that the new age estimates are important, and they support the idea of ​​an early east-west dispersal,” he says. chris stringer At the Natural History Museum in London.

But this was already evident from four other sites in Western Europe. It is estimated that it is already about 1.4 million years old.he says.

Garba said these other sites may be just as old; their relationship is questionable. “We're not sure about those,” he says. “It's not safe or robust.”

“With all due respect, I disagree with that,” Stringer said.