The Earliest Modern Humans in Europe Found in Russia

The discoveries made at an archaeological site on the banks of the River Don in southern Russia revealed for scientists the earliest known settlement of modern humans in Europe, dated 45,000 years ago.

The artifacts were covered by sediments including a layer of volcanic ash from an eruption in Italy dated to about 40,000 years ago, thus the site must have been inhabited a few millennia earlier.

"The team, led by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the University of Colorado at Boulder, found stone, bone and ivory tools under ancient volcanic ash on the Don River in Russia 400 kilometers (250 miles) south of Moscow," said John Hoffecker, a fellow of the school's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research.

The site also contained perforated shell ornaments, which must have been achieved from the Black Sea coast, some 300 miles (500 km) south, and a carved piece of mammoth ivory apparently the head of a small human figurine. "It could represent the earliest known piece of figurative art in the world," said Hoffecker. "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."

Neanderthal people were known to have inhabited Europe for 300,000 years, before the arrival of modern humans, but - undoubtedly - the Kostenki site was inhabited by Homo sapiens. "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 added.

"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," he added.

At Kostenki a group of 20 sites was excavated for decades. In the past, Kostenki "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," the researchers said.

Other artifacts discovered included simple tools such as drills and awls, and a spade made from antlers, but the site also harbored bones of prehistoric animals such as woolly rhinoceros, bison, mammoth and moose.

Worldwide, the oldest proof of modern humans outside of Africa comes from Australia and dates 50,000 years back.

This discovery from Russia pleads for a relative early migration out of Africa, earlier than 50,000 years ago.