The human ancestor was in Eurasia nearly 2 million years ago, the cut traces of the bones of animals suggest

When you buy connections to our articles, the future and its union partners can win a commission.

Looking again through the magnifying glass of the lens on the surface of the fossility, one of us, Sabrina KuranHe took a deep air. Illuminated by a strong light located almost parallel to the surface of the bone, the V-shaped lines were obviously there fossilS There was no mistake what they mean.

She has seen them before, of bones that have been broken with stone instruments About 1.8 million years agofrom a site called Dmanisi in Georgia. These were cut traces made by a human ancestor who possessed a stone instrument. After looking at them for what she felt like eternity – but it was probably just a few seconds – she turned to our colleagues and said, “Hey … I think I found something.”

What she noticed in 2017 was our team’s first proof that hominins They interrupted several animals in the place of Grenkeanu, Romania, at least 1.95 million years ago. Previously, these other cut brands of Dmanissi were the oldest well-dated evidence in Eurasia for the presence of homini-our direct human ancestors.

Other scientists have reported objects in Eurasia and North Africa with homininic fossils, stone instruments or cassettes of animal bones from about that time. Recently published studies Adds to this story with well -dated, verified evidence that hominins of some kind have spread to this part of the world about 2 million years ago.

Related: 150,000-year-old stone instruments reveal that people lived in tropical tropical forests much earlier than thought

Romanian site with fossilized animal bones

A little grrowceanu preying: This outdoor site was originally excavated in the 1960s and researchers discover thousands of bones of fossil animals there. This is one of the most famous Wounded Pleistocene Sites in Eastern Central Europe. Many of the bones of the fossil animals are quite complete and during the excavations they lay together as they were positioned in life. The original deposition was called a “bone nest” because of how tightly packed the bones were.

If you had to stand on the hill around Grăunceanu almost 2 million years ago, it would probably seem familiar: a river canal surrounded by a forest that fades in larger grasslands toward the foot. Sometimes this river floods its shores, staggering the valley with rich soils, providing nutrients for the plants that feed animals. All quite familiar until you look more closely at these animals: ostriches, pans, giraffes, cats with teeth and hyenas-in Europe!

These are the dugout bones of these ancient animal Residents who were excavated in Grunkeanu. Unfortunately, most of the excavation records and the origin data of the site are lost. Even without those, however, Greunuanu’s fossils are so remarkably preserved that they offer a wealth of paleontological information.

A few years after finding these first cut brands, our team, including biological anthropologist Claire TerhuneZoarcheologist Samantha Gogoland Paleoanthropologist Chris RobinsonHe spent a few weeks carefully studying all Greunuanu’s 4.524 fossils, looking for more evaluations.

We looked at all the surfaces of each excavated bone with a magnifying glass lens and a low angle of light. Most of these fossils have a radically etching on them – blue, shallow, overlapping traces made of plant roots that grow nearby. But every time we saw a linear mark that looked interesting, we made an impression on this brand with a toothpit material.

Confirming that traces are cut off

We can’t go back to a time machine to watch when these brands are made. Yes, ancient human butchers possessing stone instruments would leave traces of bone. But mammalian or crocodiles can also leave traces with their sharp teeth. The sediment in the rivers can scratch all the bones that roll in the water. Big animals that pass through the landscape can move and scrape the bones with their footsteps.

So how can we be confident that they are cut off? It is there that our zoarcheologist associates Michael Panthe and Trevor Keville entered.

Over the past decade, Pante has developed a A new method of identifying The source of brands left on the bones. The first step is the capture of precision 3D measurements of the brand’s impressions using an advanced microscope called a Infontable 3D optical profileS

They then compare 3D data from ancient brands with a reference set of 898 marks on modern bones made of known processes, including butcher with stone tools, feeding of carnivorous and precipitated abrasion.

This new method adds to the more quality, descriptive criteria that many researchers, including our team, use to make Mark IDs. For example, we look at things like Mark Location: The brand near a place to attach muscle, where you can expect to find a cut mark if Hominin removes bone meat?

Based on our analyzes, we found that 20 GrăuNceanu fossils were marked with cuts, eight showing high confidence markings. Most of these marks are fossils of coconut animals, including several deer; One is a small bone with carnivorous meat. When we could identify the type of bone, the cut brands are always in anatomical places corresponding to the cutting of bone meat.

Dating the site

While the fossil species present can give us a rough assessment of the age of the site, we used uranium-Lead (U-PB) dating to get More accurate information about ageS This technique relies on the fact that the naturally occurring uranium breaks down through long but well -known periods of time to transform into lead. Geologists use the ratio of these two elements as a radiometric clock to determine how old something is.

When one of us, Virgil DreginGeochimic asked John Woodhed In order to use U-PB dating to evaluate the age of GrăuNceanu fossils based on several small dental fragments, it was not reluctant. Teeth usually do not work well for this dating technique. But he agreed to the test and to his surprise the teeth he tried, they worked very well.

Along with his colleague John HelstromThey calculated a much more accurate date for the site. We already know that Greunuanu’s website is more than 1.95 million years old.

All these data together-very well-calibrated and tightly grouped samples plus at least 20 cut bones, checked both by quality and quantitative methods-to provide very reliable evidence that the hominins were indeed in Eurasia at least 1.95 million years ago, although there were no fossils of learning from Grunkeanu.

Related stories

– The most informed stone instruments in Europe are 1.4 million years old. And they were not made by modern people.

-16,000-year-old skeleton, crystals and stone instruments found in Malaysian caves

– ‘mystery population of human ancestors gave us 20% of our genes and can enhance our brain function

Sometimes, when we look through our magnifier, it is almost felt that we can look into the past. This is impossible -but we can bring evidence together to draw a more clear picture of what happened in the past in Grenkeanu.

Now, imagining the view 1.95 million years ago, we see scenes of deer who cautiously drink from the river, majestic mammoths in the distance, a flock of horses, grazing, a cat with a sword, lurking a big monkey, a bear who teach her cubes to hunt … and a small group of width.

This edited article has been reissued by Conversation Under Creative Commons license. Read Original articleS