New evidence pushes back arrival of early hominins in Europe

The team of researchers, also led by co-principal investigators Dr. Alexandru Petculescu, of the "Emil Racoviţă" Institute of Speleology, Romanian Academy in Bucharest, Romania and Dr. Claire E. Terhune, an associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Arkansas, have uncovered multiple cut marked bones that appear to have been made by early hominins using stone tools at the site of Grăunceanu, Romania. These cut marks, dating to approximately 1.95 million years ago, represent some of the earliest 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.

"We didn't initially expect to find much," Curran explained. "But during a routine check of the collections we found several cut marked bones. This led to further investigation in collaboration with Dr. Briana Pobiner of the Smithsonian Institution and Dr. Michael Pante, of Colorado State University, and the discovery of other distinct marks across different bones, suggesting deliberate butchering 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 findings are supported by biostratigraphic data and high-resolution U-Pb dating techniques, which have established the site's age with remarkable precision. In addition, Dr. Virgil Drăguşin and the team used isotope analysis to reconstruct the environments that these hominins would have experienced in this area at the time. Those results indicate that the region would have experienced seasonal fluctuations in temperature, much like today, but perhaps with increased levels of rainfall.

According to Curran, this discovery has significant implications for our understanding of human evolution, suggesting that early hominins may have had a widespread presence across Eurasia long before the more established hominin sites 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 cut-marked bones, Curran's team has also uncovered fossils of a wide range of species that lived in Romania at the time, shedding light on the environment in which these early humans lived. The site, which once hosted a diverse range of species, has yielded fossils of saber-toothed cats, giraffes, and even an extinct species of pangolin. This finding highlights the extraordinary biodiversity of the region during the early Pleistocene.

"The evidence coming out of Romania suggests that early hominins were much more adaptable than we previously thought," Curran added. "These early humans were capable of surviving and thriving in a variety of environments."

In addition to being published in Nature Communications, Curran and her team will present their findings at the American Association of Biological Anthropologists (AABA) conference in March 2025.

"The history of human evolution is far more complex and intricate than we could have imagined, and we are just beginning to uncover the many chapters of that story."