ASTOLFO ARAUJOCave in the Zarqa River Valley, Jordan: the region may have been one of the first stops of the genus Homo after leaving AfricaASTOLFO ARAUJO
A team of archaeologists and bioanthropologists from the University of São Paulo, the Italian Institute of Human Paleontology in Rome and Hashemite University in Jordan, discovered two sandstone caves in the valley of the Zarqa River, a tributary of the famous Jordan River that runs through the central highlands of Jordan. The rock shelters were found during a prospecting trip conducted by researchers from October 1 through 13 as part of the preliminary stage of a long-term international project that aims to study how and when early hominids of the genus Homo began to leave Africa and spread to other continents, about 1.8 million years ago. “Before they reached Asia and possibly Europe, these hominids must have passed through the Middle East,” says Walter Neves of USP, leader of the scientific undertaking. The Zarqa River Valley was chosen as the target of the project because in the 1990s the Italian archaeologist Fabio Parenti, today a partner of the Brazilians in the initiative, discovered about 50 prehistoric sites there. In addition to fossil remains, such as a mammoth tooth estimated to be 1 million years old, remains of the oldest (Oldowan) stone tool industry created by hominids had been found in the region, consisting of pebbles carved between 2.6 and 1.6 million years ago.
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