AP – Ancient stone tools found in western Ukraine may be the oldest known evidence of early human presence in Europe, according to research published on Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The chipped stones, deliberately fashioned from volcanic rock, were excavated from a quarry in Korolevo in the 1970s. Archaeologists used new methods to date the layers of sedimentary rock surrounding the tools to more than one million years old.
“This is the earliest evidence of any type of human in Europe that is dated,” said geophysicist Mads Faurschou Knudsen at Aarhus University in Denmark and co-author of the new study.
He said it’s not certain which early human ancestors fashioned the tools, but it may have been Homo erectus, the first species to walk upright and master the use of fire.
“We don’t have fossil remains, so we can’t be sure,” said archaeologist at the Czech Academy of Sciences and co-author Roman Garba.
The chipped stone tools were likely used for cutting meat and perhaps scraping animal hides, he said.
The researchers suggest the tools may be as old as 1.4 million years, but other experts said the study methodology suggests they may be just over one million years old, placing them in roughly the same date range as other ancient tools unearthed in Spain.
