A tooth and six bone fragments found in a Bulgarian cave are the oldest directly dated remains of Homo sapiens in Europe, scientists say.
"Teeth, bones, ornaments and stone tools from the Bacho Kiro cave in current-day Bulgaria have revealed that the first modern humans were settled in Europe as early as 47,000 years ago, according to new research.
Pendants made from animal teeth and stone tools were previously attributed to Neanderthals. But precise dating techniques revealed that bone fragments and teeth actually belonged to early modern humans. Researchers believed that modern humans arrived in Europe around 45,000 years ago and knew from the fossil record that the last of the Neanderthals went extinct in western Europe 39,000 years ago.
The new findings pushed back the arrival date of modern humans in Europe and allowed for even more overlap of modern humans and Neanderthals, also called Neandertals, raising intriguing questions about what this overlap caused and created.
"Pioneer groups of modern humans entered the mid-latitudes of Eurasia for the first time" 47,000 years ago, said Jean-Jacques Hublin, study author and director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology's department of human evolution, in an email to CNN. "They brought new behaviors into Europe and interacted with local Neandertals. They exchanged genes but also techniques: The kind of pendants found in Bacho Kiro will be later also produced by the last Neandertals in Western Europe.""
"Teeth, bones, ornaments and stone tools from the Bacho Kiro cave in current-day Bulgaria have revealed that the first modern humans were settled in Europe as early as 47,000 years ago, according to new research.
Pendants made from animal teeth and stone tools were previously attributed to Neanderthals. But precise dating techniques revealed that bone fragments and teeth actually belonged to early modern humans. Researchers believed that modern humans arrived in Europe around 45,000 years ago and knew from the fossil record that the last of the Neanderthals went extinct in western Europe 39,000 years ago.
The new findings pushed back the arrival date of modern humans in Europe and allowed for even more overlap of modern humans and Neanderthals, also called Neandertals, raising intriguing questions about what this overlap caused and created.
"Pioneer groups of modern humans entered the mid-latitudes of Eurasia for the first time" 47,000 years ago, said Jean-Jacques Hublin, study author and director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology's department of human evolution, in an email to CNN. "They brought new behaviors into Europe and interacted with local Neandertals. They exchanged genes but also techniques: The kind of pendants found in Bacho Kiro will be later also produced by the last Neandertals in Western Europe.""
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