Paleoanthropologists have found 1.95-million-year-old cut-marked bones that appear to have been made by early hominins using stone tools at the site of Grăunceanu in Romania. The discovery sheds new light on the timing and extent of hominin dispersal across Eurasia.
This is an artist’s reconstruction of female Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia. Image credit: Elisabeth Daynes, via tabula.ge.
“Current evidence for the earliest appearance of hominins outside Africa comes from the site of Dmanisi, Georgia,” said Ohio University paleoanthropologist Dr. Sabrina Curran and her colleagues.
“Dated to 1.85-1.77 million years ago, the Dmanisi assemblage includes a large number of hominin remains, as well as stone tools and evidence of hominin modification of animal remains (e.g., butchery marks).”
“This site clearly demonstrates a hominin presence in Southwest Asia/Eastern Europe by the Early Pleistocene, yet the exact timing of the initial dispersal of hominins out of Africa and the long-term success of these dispersals is debated.”
“One Early Pleistocene Eurasian locality that could shed light on the initial dispersal of hominins into Eurasia is Grăunceanu, located in the Olteţ River Valley of Romania.”
The site of Grăunceanu was originally excavated in the 1960s and is one of the best known Early Pleistocene localities from East-Central Europe.
At least 31 species were identified from Grăunceanu, including mammoth, multiple species of bovids and cervids, giraffids, equids, rhinocerotids, multiple carnivore species, rodents (beaver, porcupine), ostrich, a large species of terrestrial monkey, and the youngest representative of pangolins in Europe.
The bones, which had been curated in the Emil Racoviţă Institute of Speleology and the Museum of Oltenia, were largely overlooked until recent re-examinations by Dr. Curran and co-authors.
“We didn’t initially expect to find much,” Dr. Curran explained.
“But during a routine check of the collections we found several cut-marked bones.”
“The discovery is especially notable because it predates the well-known Dmanisi site in Georgia — previously considered the earliest evidence of hominin activity outside of Africa — by roughly 200,000 years.”
“This new finding places Romania as a crucial location for understanding the spread and behaviors of early human ancestors.”
The findings are supported by biostratigraphic data and high-resolution U-Pb dating techniques, which have established the site’s age with remarkable precision.
In addition, the authors used isotope analysis to reconstruct the environments that these hominins would have experienced in this area at the time.
Those results indicate that the region would have experienced seasonal fluctuations in temperature, much like today, but perhaps with increased levels of rainfall.
“The Grăunceanu site represents a pivotal moment in our understanding of human prehistory,” Dr. Curran said.
“It demonstrates that early hominins had already begun to explore and inhabit diverse environments across Eurasia, showing an adaptability that would later play a crucial role in their survival and spread.”
The findings were published this week in the journal Nature Communications.
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S.C. Curran et al. 2025. Hominin presence in Eurasia by at least 1.95 million years ago. Nat Commun 16, 836; doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-56154-9
