Previously, the oldest hominin fossils in western Turkey were recovered in 2007 at Koçabas, but the dating of these and other stone tool finds were uncertain. Scientists have discovered the oldest recorded stone tool ever to be found in Turkey, revealing that humans passed through the gateway from Asia to Europe much earlier than previously thought, approximately 1.2 million years ago. "This discovery is critical for establishing the timing and route of early human dispersal into Europe," study author Danielle Schreve, an archaeologist at the Royal Holloway University of London, said in a statement. "Our research suggests that the flake is the earliest securely-dated artifact from Turkey ever recorded and was dropped on the floodplain by an early hominin well over a million years ago." One site where the researchers looked was a place where an ancient river twisted slightly, 
 
 "The flake was an incredibly exciting find," Schreve said. "I had been studying the sediments in the meander bend and my eye was drawn to a pinkish stone on the surface. When I turned it over for a better look, the features of a humanly-struck artifact were immediately apparent." The researchers used high-precision radioisotopic dating and palaeomagnetic measurements from lava flows, which both pre-date and post-date the meander, to establish that early humans were present in the area between approximately 1.24 million and 1.17 million years ago. According to research published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, the chance find of a humanly-worked quartzite flake, in ancient deposits of the river Gediz, in western Turkey, provides a major new insight into when and how early humans dispersed out of Africa and Asia.
– An early human dropped a stone tool on a floodplain in what is now Turkey about 1.2 million years ago. Today, its discovery is helping scientists pinpoint when humans began their move from Asia to Europe. The quartzite flake, described in Quaternary Science Reviews, is "the earliest securely-dated artifact from Turkey ever recorded," and its discovery pushes back the presumed date of human migration into Europe, researcher Danielle Schreve says, per EurekAlert. Her eye just happened to be "drawn to a pinkish stone on the surface" while studying a sediment deposit in an ancient river bend near Gediz. "When I turned it over for a better look, the features of a humanly-struck artifact were immediately apparent," Schreve says. Other hominin fossils were found in Turkey in 2007, but experts aren't confident about their age. Some say an ancient skull shows humans were in Turkey as far back as 1.3 million years ago, but others date it to about 500,000 years ago, LiveScience reports. In the case of the flake, researchers used high-precision radioisotopic dating on the ancient river deposit in which the artifact was found. They also used magnetic minerals within the regions' rocks to gauge the position of the magnetic poles around the time it was left. The data revealed a "secure chronology," showing humans were in the area between 1.24 million and 1.17 million years ago, experts say. (Find out why modern humans' bones are weaker than those of their ancestors.)