East-to-west human dispersal into Europe 1.4 million years ago

0585012 - ÚJF 2025 RIV DE eng J - Journal Article
Garba, Roman - Usyk, V. I. - Ylä-Mella, Lotta - Kameník, Jan - Stübner, K. - Lachner, J. - Rugel, G. - Veselovský, F. - Gerasimenko, N. - Herries, A. I. R. - Kučera, Jan - Knudsen, M. F. - Jansen, John D.
East-to-west human dispersal into Europe 1.4 million years ago.
Nature. Roč. 627, č. 8005 (2024), s. 805-810. ISSN 0028-0836. E-ISSN 1476-4687
R&D Projects: GA MŠMT EF16_019/0000728; GA ČR(CZ) GA22-13190S
Research Infrastructure: CICRR - 90241
Institutional support: RVO:67985530 ; RVO:61389005
Keywords : western Ukraine Korolevo * cosmogenic nuclides burial dating methods * European Plaeolithic
OECD category: Atomic, molecular and chemical physics (physics of atoms and molecules including collision, interaction with radiation, magnetic resonances, Mössbauer effect); Physical geography (GFU-E)
Impact factor: 64.8, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Limited access
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07151-3

Stone tools stratified in alluvium and loess at Korolevo, western Ukraine, have been studied by several research groups1,2,3 since the discovery of the site in the 1970s. Although Korolevo’s importance to the European Palaeolithic is widely acknowledged, age constraints on the lowermost lithic artefacts have yet to be determined conclusively. Here, using two methods of burial dating with cosmogenic nuclides4,5, we report ages of 1.42 ± 0.10 million years and 1.42 ± 0.28 million years for the sedimentary unit that contains Mode-1-type lithic artefacts. Korolevo represents, to our knowledge, the earliest securely dated hominin presence in Europe, and bridges the spatial and temporal gap between the Caucasus (around 1.85–1.78 million years ago)6 and southwestern Europe (around 1.2–1.1 million years ago)7,8. Our findings advance the hypothesis that Europe was colonized from the east, and our analysis of habitat suitability9 suggests that early hominins exploited warm interglacial periods to disperse into higher latitudes and relatively continental sites—such as Korolevo—well before the Middle Pleistocene Transition.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0352782