Lower Palaeolithic in Korolevo I (Transcarpathia, Ukraine, East-Central Europe): the earliest in Europe?

Yuri E. Demidenko

Ferenc Rakoczi II Transcarpathian Hungarian College of Higher Education, 6 Kossuth Square, Berehove 902 00, Ukraine. E-mail: yu.e.demidenko@gmail.com ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1477-140X

Cite as: Demidenko, Yu. E. (2024) ‘Lower Palaeolithic in Korolevo I (Transcarpathia, Ukraine, East-Central Europe): the earliest in Europe?’, Litikum – Journal of the Lithic Research Roundtable, 12, pp. 39–67. https://doi.org/10.23898/litikuma0041

Abstract: A recently published article in “Nature” (Garba et al., 2024) claims that lithic finds in the lowermost artefact-bearing sediments of lithological unit 26 at the Korolevo I site (Transcarpathia, Ukraine) are the oldest in Europe, dated to ca. 1.42 Ma with cosmogenic nuclides of gravel pebbles. These surprisingly old dates were then used to build hypotheses on the geochronology and routes of the initial Homo erectus colonization of Europe from the east. The present author reviews all published and unpublished Lower Palaeolithic (LP) data of the Korolevo I site, the field investigations of which he also participated in the 1980s, and came to the following negative results. The dated pebbles in Korolevo I unit 26 are of “intrusive” character, they do not date unit 26 and its lithic finds. Also, the proposed Early Pleistocene interglacial MIS 47, 45 and 43 periods for the LP colonization of Europe either via Asia Minor and the Danube River valley or the Caucasus and the southern part of Eastern Europe do not correspond to the known palaeogeographic and archaeological data from Western Eurasia. Besides, our review of LP contexts in Korolevo I suggests that the so-called lowermost LP lithic artefacts found in situ in archaeological horizon VII within lithological unit 26 in Korolevo I in 1984-1986 are distributed randomly horizontally and vertically. Moreover, they are mostly unworked hyalodacite and siliceous sandstone pieces together with several artefacts redeposited from the sediments above. Accordingly, the only certainly LP material in Korolevo I we know so far is situated in archaeological horizon VI, which is geochronologically associated with the Middle Pleistocene inter-Mindel period or MIS 14, dated to ca. 550 ka BP. However, the Korolevo I site still appears to represent the oldest LP human occupation in both Eastern Central Europe and Ukraine.

Keywords: Ukraine, Transcarpathia, Early Pleistocene, Lower Palaeolithic, Korolevo site complex

Data availability statement: The author confirms that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.

Disclosure statement: The author declares no conflict of interest.

Funding statement: No financial support for the research and the publication of this article.

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