NBC：一颗新发现的牙齿证明，现代人在46000年前到达欧洲，比原来所知的早8000年 yzout2020-05-11 11:25:19

A single tooth is changing how archaeologists think about the history of human evolution.

The tooth, a molar, is one of the last remnants of the earliest modern humans found in Europe, according to two papers published Monday by an international team of archaeologists, who found it among human remains, stone and bone tools, and pendants made from cave bear teeth, in Bulgaria’s labyrinthine Bacho Kiro cave.

“This is much older than anything else that we have found so far from modern humans in Europe,” said Jean-Jacques Hublin, a paleoanthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology at Leipzig in Germany, who led the team.

The molar is the largest surviving bone fragment from a group of very early Homo sapiens that was dated to between 44,000 and 46,000 years ago.

The papers on the discoveries were published in the science journal Nature and in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

They push back the earliest confirmed arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe, and show they somehow shared the land for thousands of years with the heavily-built Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) who were already there.

The finds also resolve a debate about distinctive tools and personal ornaments known as Bachokirian, after the cave.