Cold start
RUSSIAN archaeologist Yuri A Mochanov of the Russian Academy of Sciences claims that he dug up in Siberia stone tools resembling those found in Africa. They are 3 million years old, suggesting a Russian genesis for Homo erectus (Science, Vol 263, No 5147).
Although the tools have been dated at about 500,000 years ago, indicating that H erectus inhabited Siberia around that time, it was believed that the human colonisation of Siberia took place only 20,000 to 30,000 years ago.
The new date has opened a floodgate of possibilities, one of which is that H erectus could have pushed much further north than earlier believed (the next most northern H erectus site is 2,500 km south of Mochanov's tool excavation, in China).
If H erectus could have survived the Siberian winter 500,000 years ago, it's also possible, says anthropologist Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, that early humans -- H erectus descendants -- could have made their way from Siberia, over the ice-covered Bering Strait, into America long before the currently accepted date of around 14,000 years ago. Critics of an earlier date for the colonisation of America have always argued that technologies sophisticated enough to survive the Arctic chill were not available then.
Related Content
- Order of the National Green Tribunal regarding implementation of cold storage project initiated by Mandi Samiti, Vikasnagar, Uttarakhand, 04/02/2025
- Real world NOx performance of Euro VI-D trucks and recommendations for Euro VII
- Estimated cost of diesel emissions control technology to meet future Euro VII standards
- Order of the National Green Tribunal regarding lack of EC by Chromeni Steel, Kutch, Gujarat, 27/08/2019
- Notification regarding emission standards for construction equipment vehicles, and agricultural tractors
- Melting Greenland Ice Sheet To Release Cold War–Era Toxic Wastes Buried By US Military