Turkey is considered the gateway from Asia to Europe for our distant ancestors , and based on a freshly find stone tool – the old on record for the surface area – researchers reckon humans dot out of Asia around 1.2 million years ago . That ’s much earlier than previously think , according to newworkpublished inQuaternary Science Reviews .
Stone aged artefact and fossils have previously been unearthed in westerly Turkey ( in a region known as Anatolia ) in limestone deposit at Kocabaş in the Denizli watershed . But their chronology have n’t been constrained that well . The newly discovered cock was find about 100 kilometre northwards of those late discovery and ( importantly ) in an ancient river meander that cut through lavas that could be precisely aged .
" This discovery is critical for establishing the timing and path of early human dissemination into Europe , " saysDanielle Schreve from Royal Holloway University of Londonin anews release . " Our research suggests that the flake is the early firmly - date stamp artifact from Turkey ever record and was drop on the floodplain by an early hominin well over a million years ago . " Schreve , together with an international squad led byDarrel Maddy of Newcastle University , discovered the five - centimeter - farseeing , hard - hammer quartzite flake while working with artefact from the Early Pleistocene Gediz River sequence .
" I had been studying the deposit in the meander bend and my eye was guide to a pinkish stone on the surface,“Schreve recalls . " When I turned it over for a better look , the features of a humanly - struck artifact were right away apparent . " Maddy sum up in auniversity assertion : " We observe markings on the flake that intelligibly suggest it had been shine with force by a hard power hammer or other rock puppet , making it highly improbable that it was shaped by natural processes . "
Using Ar radioisotopic geological dating – as well as charismatic mensuration from prehistoric lava flow that pre- and post - date the river meander – the team was able to nail human occupancy in the valley between 1.24 million and 1.17 million years ago .
Images : Royal Holloway ( top ) , Newcastle ( middle )
