About 450,000 years ago, people left massive stone tools near an ancient riverbed in southern Russia that may be the oldest known Acheulean tools in Eastern Europe outside the Caucasus. The finds were discovered at the Khryashti archaeological site, located on the Seversky Donets River, and preliminary dating places them between 450,000 and 400,000 years ago.
The specialized publication Heritage Daily reports that a team from the Institute of the History of Material Culture at the Russian Academy of Sciences has identified the tools as representatives of the Early Acheulean. Among the artifacts are massive hand axes and picks with strong cutting edges and pointed tips. The tools were shaped by successive blows and required careful selection of the stone raw material.
Ancient River Camp
The shape and size of the tools indicate that they were intended for repeated and heavy use. Their likely uses include woodworking, making hunting weapons, and cutting up animal carcasses. The massive tools may also have been used to process large animals, including elephants, but there is no direct archaeological evidence for such activity at Khryashti so far.
Relatively few animal remains were found in the same archaeological layer, including bones of horses and deer. According to the researchers, the site was probably a temporary camp of mobile hunting groups, rather than a permanent settlement. The ancient riverbed provided access to fresh water, food resources, and material for making tools. Periodic floods covered the traces of human presence, but the groups returned to the same place repeatedly.
Possible connection with the Caucasus
Archaeologists have found similarities between the tools from Kryashti and early Acheulean complexes from the Western Ciscaucasia and the Taman Peninsula. This supports the hypothesis that the technological tradition reached the South Russian Plain through the movement of prehistoric human groups from the Caucasus to the north.
Archaeologist Vyacheslav Shchelinsky defines the supposed period of habitation as follows:
Acheulean technology appeared in Africa more than 1.5 million years ago and gradually spread across vast parts of Eurasia. It is characterized by double-edged hand axes and other large stone tools, the production of which testifies to knowledge of the properties of raw materials and the ability to plan in advance.
It has not yet been established which human species inhabited the camp. No human fossils were found during the excavations at Khryashti, so the identity of the ancient craftsmen remains unknown. Additional archaeological and geological studies, planned to continue in 2027, should clarify the age of the site, the nature of the human presence, and the origin of the technological tradition. If the dating and classification are confirmed, Khryashti will provide important data on the early settlement of the Russian Plain and on ancient migration routes between the Caucasus and Eastern Europe.
Sources: dariknews.bg, heritagedaily.com, bgnes.bg