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A stone age archaeological site on the banks of the River Don in southern Russia has been identified as the earliest known settlement of modern humans in Europe.
The discovery has provided powerful support to the idea that the first migration of modern humans out of sub-Saharan Africa occurred less than 50,000 years ago.
Scientists have dated human artefacts from the Russian site to 45,000 BC which would make the inhabitants the earliest known ancestors of Europeans today.
"The big surprise here is the very early presence of modern humans in one of the coldest, driest places in Europe," said John Hoffecker of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
"It is the one of the last places we would have expected people from Africa to occupy first," said Dr Hoffecker, who worked on the site with colleagues from the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg.
The discovery is published in the journal Science alongside another study showing that a skull found in South Africa has been dated to about 35,000 years ago and bears a close resemblance of the skulls of stone age Europeans.
The age of the skull, discovered near Hofmeyr in South Africa in 1952, was for many years a mystery but new dating techniques now puts it in the same time period when Europe was being populated by modern humans from Africa.
Both discoveries suggest that modern humans left Africa less than 50,000 years ago on a migration path that led them east to Asia and north to Europe.
Modern humans, Homo sapiens, are thought to have first arisen in sub-Saharan Africa about 200,000 years ago.
Previously, scientists has thought they migrated out of Africa about 100,000 years ago.
However, genetic studies have suggested a much later migration to Europe and Asia.
The new date of the European-like skull in South Africa, and its near match to the date of the Russian archaeological site, lends further weight to the idea of a far later migration out of Africa.
Among the artefacts found at Kostenki, which lies on the west bank of the Don about half way between Moscow and the Black Sea, is the head of a small human figurine.
"This is a really interesting piece. If confirmed, it will be the oldest example of figurative art ever discovered," Dr Hoffecker said.
Sediment overlying the artefacts includes a layer of ash from a volcanic eruption in Italy dated to about 40,000 years ago.
This suggests the site must have been inhabited a few thousand years earlier.
The archaeologists have also unearthed ivory needles with eyelets, suggesting that the early Kostenki people were stitching animal furs together to help them to survive the cold winters.
The scientists also found perforated shell ornaments which must have come from the Black Sea coast some 300 miles away.
Neanderthal man was known to have inhabited Europe for many thousands of years prior to the arrival of anatomically-modern humans but there is little doubt that the site at Kostenki was inhabited by Homo sapiens.
"Although human skeletal remains in the earliest level of the excavation are confined to isolated teeth, which are notoriously difficult to assign to specific human types, the artefacts are unmistakably the work of modern humans," Dr Hoffecker said.
"Unlike the Neanderthals, modern humans had the ability to devise new technologies for coping with cold climates and less than abundant food resources," he said.
"The Neanderthals, who had occupied Europe for more than 200,000 years, seem to have left the back door open for modern humans," he added.
Other artefacts found at Kostenki include simple tools such as drills and awls, as well as a spade made from antlers.
Bones of prehistoric animals such as woolly rhinoceros, bison, mammoth and moose were also found at the site.
The oldest evidence of modern humans outside of Africa comes from Australian artefacts which have been dated to about 50,000 years ago.
- INDEPENDENT
