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From: Primum Sapienti <invalide@invalid.invalid>
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Subject: Hominin presence in Eurasia by at least 1.95 million years ago
Date: Sun, 26 Jan 2025 22:33:11 -0700
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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56154-9
20 January 2025

Abstract
The timing of the initial dispersal of hominins
into Eurasia is unclear. Current evidence
indicates hominins were present at Dmanisi,
Georgia by 1.8 million years ago (Ma), but other
ephemeral traces of hominins across Eurasia
predate Dmanisi. However, no hominin remains
have been definitively described from Europe
until ~1.4 Ma. Here we present evidence of hominin
activity at the site of Grăunceanu, Romania in
the form of multiple cut-marked bones.
Biostratigraphic and high-resolution U-Pb age
estimates suggest Grăunceanu is > 1.95 Ma, making
this site one of the best-dated early hominin
localities in Europe. Environmental
reconstructions based on isotopic analyzes of
horse dentition suggest Grăunceanu would have
been relatively temperate and seasonal,
demonstrating a wide habitat tolerance in even
the earliest hominins in Eurasia. Our results,
presented along with multiple other lines of
evidence, point to a widespread, though perhaps
intermittent, presence of hominins across
Eurasia by at least 2.0 Ma.


"At least 31 taxa (Supplementary Data 1) are
identified from Grăunceanu, including mammoth,
multiple species of bovids and cervids,
giraffids, equids, rhinocerotids, multiple
carnivore species, rodents (beaver, porcupine),
ostrich, a large species of terrestrial monkey
(Paradolichopithecus), and the youngest
representative of pangolins in Europe.
Paleoecological analyses suggest Grăunceanu
was a forest-steppe environment along the
paleo-Olteţ river."

"We purposefully avoid discussion of the
hominin species (or multiple species) that may
have been the first to disperse into Eurasia.
This is a period when multiple hominin species
coexisted at sites in eastern and southern
Africa. The taxonomic affinity of nearly all
hominin fossils in Fig. 5 is debated; many are
identified only to Homo sp. and others are
identified as Homo erectus/ergaster. Present
evidence indicates that the earliest H. erectus
sensu lato was present in both South Africa and
Ethiopia ca. 2.0 Ma; this therefore broaches the
possibility that, if hominins were present in
Eurasia prior to 2.0 Ma, then they may not have
been H. erectus, and/or that H. erectus is older
than we currently have data for."