A newly discovered prehistoric land bridge between Turkey and Europe has added an “entirely new page” to the history of human migration.
After conducting a two-week survey in 2022, a team of female researchers discovered an impressive 138 artifacts across 77.2 square miles along the stunning Aegean coast of Ayvalık in Turkey.
The findings revealed that its surrounding underwater islands and peninsulas once formed a continuous landmass, as sea levels dropped a staggering 328 feet (100 meters) during the last Ice Age.
This shifting geology allowed early humans to cross over to Europe via this previously unknown passageway, providing a new snapshot of a crucial moment in history marked by migration.
A vital land bridge
When these trailblazing women set out to explore the picturesque coastlines of Ayvalık, they didn’t know what they would find. However, the region’s geology and paleogeography suggested that it held potential “as a dynamic site for interaction and exchange,” according to a press release.
The theory was that Anatolia, the region in which Ayvalık is situated, and Europe were linked during the last Ice Age, offering early humans a path to cross over via southward island-hopping routes. Most research up until now has focused on northern overland routes.
The two-week survey, carried out in June 2022, broadened the picture. Archaeologists discovered a new pathway.
“Our archaeological discovery has unveiled that this now-idyllic region once potentially offered a vital land bridge for human movement during the Pleistocene era—when sea levels dropped and the now-submerged landscape was briefly exposed,” explained Dr Göknur Karahan from the Department of Archaeology-Prehistory at Hacettepe University in Turkey.
Artifacts point to a dynamic site
Archaeologists unearthed artifacts right along the coastline, suggesting that early humans lived and moved across these now-submerged landscapes.
They weren’t expecting to find much, as “the widespread, muddy cover was considered a limiting factor for the preservation and detectability of Paleolithic materials.”
However, they ended up discovering hundreds of tools such as hand axes and cleavers with one “very important find,” according to study authors, an iconic piece of technology from the Paleolithic known as a Levallois-style flake tool, or a large cutting instrument associated with Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens.
“The presence of these objects in Ayvalık is particularly significant, as they provide direct evidence that the region in Turkey was part of wider technological traditions shared across Africa, Asia, and Europe.”
Ayvalık emerges as a key site in human evolution
The discovery left archaeologists even emotional because it demonstrated that Ayvalık was a site of dynamic human activity that was previously unknown in Turkey.
“Holding these objects —after walking across landscapes where no one had ever documented Paleolithic remains before— was unforgettable,” Karahan stated in the press release.
“These findings mark Ayvalık as a potential new frontier in the story of human evolution, placing it firmly on the map of human prehistory – opening up a new possibility for how early humans may have entered Europe.”
She further said, “It feels like we are adding an entirely new page to the story of human dispersal. Our research raises exciting possibilities for future exploration, and we hope it emerges as a body of work that will shift the approach of Pleistocene archaeology for decades to come.”
“Ultimately, the results underline Ayvalık’s potential as a long-term hominin habitat and a key area for understanding Paleolithic technological features in the eastern Aegean,” fellow author Dr. Hande Bulut from Düzce University added.
The study was published in the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology.