LONDON, ENGLAND—The oldest stone tool ever found in Turkey has been dated to approximately 1.2 million years ago. Danielle Schreve of Royal Holloway, University of London, found the quartzite flake in ancient deposits of the River Gediz in western Turkey. “I had been studying the sediments in the meander bend and my eye was drawn to a pinkish stone on the surface. When I turned it over for a better look, the features of a humanly-struck artifact were immediately apparent,” she recalled. An international team of researchers then used high-precision radioisotopic dating and palaeomagnetic measurements from lava flows, which both pre-date and post-date the meander, to date the artifact to between approximately 1.24 and 1.17 million years ago. “This discovery is critical for establishing the timing and route of early human dispersal into Europe,” Schreve said. To read about the oldest tools made by modern humans found in Europe, see "43,000-year-old Aurignacian tools found at Willendorf."
