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East-to-west human dispersal into Europe 1.4 million years ago

Nature volume 627, pages 805–810 (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Stone tools stratified in alluvium and loess at Korolevo, western Ukraine, have been studied by several research groups1,2,3 since the discovery of the site in the 1970s. Although Korolevo’s importance to the European Palaeolithic is widely acknowledged, age constraints on the lowermost lithic artefacts have yet to be determined conclusively. Here, using two methods of burial dating with cosmogenic nuclides4,5, we report ages of 1.42 ± 0.10 million years and 1.42 ± 0.28 million years for the sedimentary unit that contains Mode-1-type lithic artefacts. Korolevo represents, to our knowledge, the earliest securely dated hominin presence in Europe, and bridges the spatial and temporal gap between the Caucasus (around 1.85–1.78 million years ago)6 and southwestern Europe (around 1.2–1.1 million years ago)7,8. Our findings advance the hypothesis that Europe was colonized from the east, and our analysis of habitat suitability9 suggests that early hominins exploited warm interglacial periods to disperse into higher latitudes and relatively continental sites—such as Korolevo—well before the Middle Pleistocene Transition.

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Fig. 1: First peopling of Europe.
Fig. 2: Composite stratigraphic section at Korolevo I.
Fig. 3: Selected lithic artefacts from Korolevo I, level VII.
Fig. 4: Cosmogenic nuclide burial ages for Korolevo I, level VII.

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Data availability

All cosmogenic nuclide data used in this study are provided in Supplementary Table 3. Parameters used in our P-PINI model runs are given in Supplementary Tables 5–8. Parameters used in isochron burial dating are provided in Supplementary Table 4. The calculated hominin habitat suitability data are available on the climate data server at https://climatedata.ibs.re.kr linked to a previous study9.

Code availability

The MATLAB code used to generate burial ages with P-PINI (as shown in Fig. 4 and Supplementary Figs. 7–11) is shared at https://github.com/CosmoAarhus/Korolevo.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the DREAMS team at the Ion Beam Centre at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf for assistance with accelerator mass spectrometry; D. Granger and W. Odom for providing the MATLAB code describing the isochron model; and T. Fujioka for discussions about the Atapuerca sites. We acknowledge the following funding: Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MEYS) (CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_019/0000728); RADIATE (Horizon 2020, 824096) transnational access (21002366-ST); RADIATE guest researcher programme; MEYS (LM2018120); Czech Science Foundation (22-13190S); and Charles University Grant Agency (310222).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nuclear Physics Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Řež, Czechia

    R. Garba, J. Kameník & J. Kučera

  2. Institute of Archaeology Prague, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia

    R. Garba

  3. Institute of Archaeology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine

    V. Usyk

  4. Institute of Archaeology Brno, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno, Czechia

    V. Usyk

  5. GFÚ Institute of Geophysics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia

    L. Ylä-Mella & J. D. Jansen

  6. Department of Physical Geography and Geoecology, Charles University, Prague, Czechia

    L. Ylä-Mella

  7. Institute of Ion Beam Physics and Materials Research, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Dresden, Germany

    K. Stübner, J. Lachner & G. Rugel

  8. Czech Geological Survey, Prague, Czechia

    F. Veselovský

  9. Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Kyiv, Ukraine

    N. Gerasimenko

  10. Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    A. I. R. Herries

  11. Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

    A. I. R. Herries

  12. Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    M. F. Knudsen

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  1. R. Garba
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Contributions

Conceptualization: R.G., V.U. and J.D.J. Methodology: J.D.J., K.S., J. Kamenik, R.G., M.F.K., J.L., G.R., J. Kučera and F.V. Investigation: R.G., J. Kamenik, K.S., F.V., V.U., L.Y.-M., G.R., J.L., J.D.J. and M.F.K. Funding acquisition: R.G., J. Kamenik and J Kučera. Project administration: R.G. Supervision: J.D.J. and J. Kučera. Writing (original draft): R.G., J.D.J., M.F.K., V.U., N.G. and A.I.R.H. Writing (review and editing): J.D.J., M.F.K., R.G., N.G., A.I.R.H., V.U., J. Kamenik, J. Kučera, K.S., J.L., G.R. and F.V.

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Correspondence to R. Garba, M. F. Knudsen or J. D. Jansen.

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Supplementary Sections 1–4, which include background on the archaeology of Korolevo, chronometry, Supplementary References and computer code availability details.

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Garba, R., Usyk, V., Ylä-Mella, L. et al. East-to-west human dispersal into Europe 1.4 million years ago. Nature 627, 805–810 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07151-3

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