AARHUS, DENMARK—According to a report in The Guardian, stone tools discovered in a quarry in western Ukraine in the 1970s have been dated to more than one million years ago. It is not clear which early human ancestor may have made the tools, however, since no hominin remains were uncovered at the site, said Roman Garba of the Czech Academy of Sciences. “This is the earliest evidence of any type of human in Europe that is dated,” explained Mads Faurschou Knudsen of Aarhus University. Knudsen suggested that based upon their age, the tools could have been made by Homo erectus for cutting meat and maybe scraping animal hides. Similar tools of this age have been uncovered in Spain. They have also been found in eastern Africa, where they have been dated to 2.8 million years ago. “The oldest humans with this old stone tool technology were able to colonize everywhere from warm Iberia [Spain] to Ukraine, where it’s at least seasonally very cold—that’s an amazing level of adaptability,” added Rick Potts of the Smithsonian Institution. To read about 3.3-million-year-old stone tools found in Kenya, go to "Earliest Stone Tools," one of ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 Discoveries of 2015.
