Mysterious bones found in ancient cave are OLDEST evidence of modern humans in Europe – and date back 45,000 years

THE oldest bones of modern humans ever found in Europe have been discovered in a Bulgarian cave.

According to new research, the bones are now the earliest known evidence of our species emerging on the European continent.

Researchers have found it difficult to reconstruct the timeline of Homo sapiens appearing in Europe.

Limited ancient remains have been discovered so the new bones are rare and valuable evidence.

Modern humans arriving in Europe led to the disappearance of Neanderthals over the next few thousand years.

Experts are hoping that the bones and artefacts found in the Bulgarian cave will shed some light on the mystery of this transition period during the Upper Palaeolithic.

This period very broadly dates back to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago.

The newly discovered Homo sapiens artefacts were discovered in an archaeological site called Bacho Kiro Cave in central Bulgaria.

The site is well known for Palaeolithic fossils but some fragmented remains of human fossils found in 20th century excavations were lost.

New excavations started in 2015 but most of the bones found were so fragmented that the researchers couldn’t initially tell which animal they were from.

They had to use in depth analysis to find protein sequences in the tiny bone pieces that match with modern humans.

Five modern human examples dating back to the Upper Palaeolithic Period were found.

The only piece of modern human that didn’t require special analysis initially was a tooth that is clearly from Homo sapiens.

Radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis was used to find that the Homo sapiens were living in the cave from about 45,820 to 43,650 years ago.

However, some of the remains could date as far back as 46,940 years ago.

Before this discovery, the oldest confirmed Homo sapiens remains in Europe were from Romania, and dated to about 41,000 years ago.

The authors explain in their research: “Therefore, to our knowledge, these bones represent the oldest European Upper Palaeolithic hominins recovered to date.”

A huge range of stone tools and animal bone artefacts were also found.

This included bear tooth pendants, similar to Neanderthal designs found in France.

The researchers think that the Neanderthals could have influenced the modern humans when they arrived on the continent.

The study authors wrote: “Whatever the cognitive complexity of the last Neanderthals might have been, the earlier age of the Bacho Kiro Cave material supports the notion that these specific behavioural novelties seen in declining Neanderthal populations resulted from contacts with migrant H. sapiens.”

These findings have been reported in the journals  and .

In other news, skeletons found in a mass grave in Mexico reveal the horrors endured by the first African slaves transported to Latin America.

Rare footage of an Ancient Egyptian ‘funeral home’ has been released by National Geographic.

And, ancient dinosaur fossils have led scientists to pinpoint “the most dangerous place in the history of planet Earth”.

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