The team of researchers, also led through co-prisoners researchers, Dr. Alexandru PetCulescu from the Specification Institute “Emil Racoviţţ”, the Romanian Academy of Bucharest, Romania and Dr. Alexandru PetCulescu from the Specification Institute “Emil Racoviţţţ”, the Romanian Academy of Economics and Astronomy of the Romanian Academy of Anthropology. Claire E. Terhune, an associate professor in the department of anthropology at the University of Arkansas, discovered several bones marked with cuts that appear to have been made through stone equipment from the early homenins at the Grăunceanu site in Romania. These cut marks, which date back about 1. 95 million years, make up some of the first. Evidence of tool use and meat processing in Eurasia.
The discovery, published in Nature Communications, sheds new light on the timing and extent of hominin dispersal across Eurasia. While previous evidence indicated hominin presence in Dmanisi, Georgia, around 1.8 million years ago, the discovery at Grăunceanu pushes this timeline even further back, suggesting that hominins may have been present in Eurasia by at least 2 million years ago.
“The discovery of these cut marks is significant because it pushes back the timeline of hominin activity in Eurasia,” Curran said. “While evidence of stone tools has been found in other parts of the world, the presence of these marks on bones offers a rare and valuable glimpse into the behavior of early human ancestors.”
Curran and team’s research builds on decades of previous excavations in Romania, where major fossil discoveries were made in the 1960s and 1980s. The bones, which had been curated in the “Emil Racoviţă” Institute of Speleology and the Museum of Oltenia, were largely overlooked until recent re-examinations by Curran and her international team.
“You didn’t expect everyone to expect to locate much,” Curran said. “But a verification of the regime of the collections, we discovered several marked bones. Through other bones, suggesting planned oral activities. “
The discovery is especially notable because it predates the well-known Dmanisi site in Georgia — previously considered the earliest evidence of hominin activity outside of Africa — by roughly 200,000 years. This new finding places Romania as a crucial location for understanding the spread and behaviors of early human ancestors.
The effects are supported through biostratigraphic knowledge and high-resolution U-PB date techniques, which established the age of the site with remarkable accuracy. In addition, Dr. Virgil Drown and the team used isotope investigation to rebuild the environments that these homenines would have. experienced in this box at that time. These effects imply that the region would have experienced seasonal temperature fluctuations, as well as today, but with greater degrees of precipitation.
According to Curran, this discovery has implications for our understanding of human evolution, which suggests that the first hominians can have a general presence in Eurasia long before the homininous sites most established in Europe.
“The Grăunceanu site represents a pivotal moment in our understanding of human prehistory, Curran said. “It demonstrates that early hominins had already begun to explore and inhabit diverse environments across Eurasia, showing an adaptability that would later play a crucial role in their survival and spread.”
In addition to the marked bones, Curran’s team also discovered the fossils of a wide diversity of species living in Romania at the time, highlighting the surroundings in which those early humans lived. The site, which once housed a diversified diversity of species, yielded fossils of saber-toothed, giraffes, and even an extinct species of pangolin. This highlights the region’s ordinary biodiversity at the beginning of the Pleistocene.
“Evidence from Romania recommends that early hominins were much more adaptable than previously thought,” Curran added. “These early humans were able and thrived in a variety of environments. “
In addition to being in the communications of nature, Curran and his team will provide their findings in the Convention of the American Association of Biological Anthropologists (AABA) in March 2025.
“The history of human evolution is much more complex and complex than we could have imagined, and we are barely beginning to notice the many chapters of this story. “
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