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Earliest
Evidence Of Modern Humans In Europe Discovered By International
Team
Jan. 11, 2007
The
Kostenki site 250 miles south of Moscow has yielded evidence
of early modern humans from up to 45,000 years ago.
Credit:
University of Colorado, Boulder
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Modern humans who first
arose in Africa had moved into Europe as far back as about 45,000
years ago, according to a new study by an international research
team led by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the University of
Colorado at Boulder.
The evidence consists of stone, bone
and ivory tools discovered under a layer of ancient volcanic ash
on the Don River in Russia some 250 miles south of Moscow, said
John Hoffecker, a fellow of CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and
Alpine Research. Thought to contain the earliest evidence of
modern humans in Europe, the site also has yielded perforated
shell ornaments and a carved piece of mammoth ivory that appears
to be the head of a small human figurine, which may represent the
earliest piece of figurative art in the world, he said.
"The
big surprise here is the very early presence of modern humans in
one of the coldest, driest places in Europe," Hoffecker
said. "It is one of the last places we would have expected
people from Africa to occupy first."
A paper by
Michael Anikovich and Andrei Sinitsyn of the Russian Academy of
Sciences, Hoffecker, and 13 other researchers was published in
the Jan. 12 issue of Science.
The excavation took place
at Kostenki, a group of more than 20 sites along the Don River
that have been under study for many decades. Kostenki previously
has yielded anatomically modern human bones and artifacts dating
between 30,000 and 40,000 years old, including the oldest firmly
dated bone and ivory needles with eyelets that indicate the early
inhabitants were tailoring animal furs to help them survive the
harsh climate.
Most of the stone used for artifact
construction was imported from between 60 miles and 100 miles
away, while the perforated shell ornaments discovered at the
lowest levels of the Kostenki dig were imported from the Black
Sea more than 300 miles away, he said. "Although human
skeletal remains in the earliest level of the excavation are
confined to isolated teeth, which are notoriously difficult to
assign to specific human types, the artifacts are unmistakably
the work of modern humans," Hoffecker said.
The
sediment overlying the artifacts was dated by several methods,
including an analysis of an ash layer deposited by a monumental
volcanic eruption in present-day Italy about 40,000 years ago,
Hoffecker said. The researchers also used optically stimulated
luminescence dating -- which helps them determine how long ago
materials were last exposed to daylight -- as well as
paleomagnetic dating based on known changes in the orientation
and intensity of Earth's magnetic field and radiocarbon
calibration.
Anatomically modern humans are thought to
have arisen in sub-Saharan Africa around 200,000 years ago.
Kostenki also contains evidence that modern humans were
rapidly broadening their diet to include small mammals and
freshwater aquatic foods, an indication they were "remaking
themselves technologically," he said. They may have used
traps and snares to catch hares and arctic foxes, exploiting
large areas of the environment with relatively little energy.
"They probably set out their nets and traps and went home
for lunch," he said.
While there is some evidence
Neanderthals once occupied the plains of Eastern Europe, they
seem to have been scarce or absent there during the last glacial
period when modern humans arrived, he said. The lack of
competitors like the Neanderthals might have been the chief
attraction to the area and the reason why modern humans first
entered this part of Europe, Hoffecker said.
"Unlike
the Neanderthals, modern humans had the ability to devise new
technologies for coping with cold climates and less than abundant
food resources," he said. "The Neanderthals, who had
occupied Europe for more than 200,000 years, seem to have left
the back door open for modern humans. "
The ivory
artifact believed to be the head of a small figurine, discovered
during the 2001 field season, was broken and perhaps never was
finished by the person who began crafting it more than 40,000
years ago, said Hoffecker. "This is a really interesting
piece," he said. "If confirmed, it will be the oldest
example of figurative art ever discovered."
Buried
under 10 feet to 15 feet of silt, the artifacts at Kostenki
include blades, scrapers, drills and awls, as well as sturdy
antler digging tools known as mattocks that resemble crude
pick-axes, he said. Mattocks have been found at other Old World
sites and the arctic and were used to dig large pits for the
storage of foods and fuel, although traces of such pits have yet
to turn up at the lowest levels of Kostenki, he said.
Large
animal remains at Kostenki include mammoth, woolly rhinoceros,
bison, horses, moose and reindeer. A bone chemistry analysis from
30,000-year-old human remains indicates a high consumption of
freshwater aquatic foods -- either water birds, fish, or both --
more evidence for efficient food gathering techniques, he said.
The study also included researchers from the University
of Arizona, the Kostenki Museum-Preserve in Kostenki, the
University of Illinois-Chicago, Boston University, the University
College London and the Institute of Environmental Geology,
Climate and Geoengineering in Rome. Research at Kostenki has been
funded by the Leakey Foundation and the National Science
Foundation.
Except for some early sites in the Near East,
the oldest evidence modern humans outside of Africa comes from
the Australian continent roughly 50,000 years ago, said
Hoffecker, who was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Russian
Academy of Sciences in 2006. Several modern human sites in
south-central Europe may be almost as old as Kostenki, he said.
Source
/ Credit: Credit: University of Colorado, Boulder
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