As a counter to the school of thought that holds that Europe is merely a Johnny-come-lately in the cultural stakes, archaeologists have uncovered 3,500-year-old royal tombs in Greece:
https://time.com/5751800/american-archaeologists-greece-mycenaean-tombs/
“American archaeologists have discovered two monumental royal tombs dating from about 3,500 years ago near a major Mycenaean-era palace in Greece’s southern Peloponnese region, the Greek culture ministry said Tuesday. A ministry statement said the dome-shaped roofs of both tombs near the Bronze Age palace of Pylos collapsed during antiquity, and the chambers became filled with so much earth and rubble that grave robbers couldn’t get in to plunder them. Nevertheless, the tombs were disturbed during the period of their use over several generations — unlike another Mycenaean grave found nearby in 2015 that yielded a stunning hoard of gold and silver treasure, jewelry and bronze arms buried with a man presumed to have been an early ruler of Pylos. Recovered grave goods from the two tombs included a golden seal ring and a golden amulet of an ancient Egyptian goddess, highlighting Bronze Age trade and cultural links. The ministry said the discovery was particularly important as it shed light on the early phases of Greece’s Mycenaean civilization. The Mycenaean era, between roughly 1650-1100 B.C. provided the material for many of the myths and legends of ancient Greece including that of the Trojan War. The larger of the two tombs had a diameter of 12 meters (36 feet) at floor level and its stone walls survived to a height of 4.5 meters (15 feet) — less than half its original height. The other was about two-thirds of that size and its walls now stand two meters high. Both belong to the tholos type of tomb, massive domed underground constructions reserved for Mycenaean royalty that could reach roughly 15 meters (45 feet) in height.”
Along with this, a dig in Ethiopia has uncovered ancient tools:
https://www.naturalnews.com/2020-01-09-ethiopian-dig-unearths-ancient-stone-tools.html
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/24/11712.short
“An archaeological site in Ethiopia has discovered some of the earliest evidence of stone tools known to the world. Previously, the oldest unearthed evidence was dated at between 2.58 and 2.55 million years ago. In the dig site known as Bokol Dora 1 (BD1) in the Afar region of northeastern Ethiopia, researchers have found evidence of stone tools dated to be older than 2.58 million years. Their research was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, wherein they described the substantial amount of stone tools they found in BD1. Christopher Campisano, a co-author of the study and professor from Arizona State University, stated that he and the team saw sharp-edged stone tools sticking out of sediments on a steep, eroded slope. When he peered over the edge of a small cliff, he saw rocks sticking out. He then found two stone tools by scaling up from the bottom of the said cliff and using his rock hammer. Luckily for Campisano and his team, the stone tools were discarded near a water source and were subsequently buried. Vera Aldeias, an archaeologist and researcher from the University of Algarve in Portugal, said that when they looked at the sediments at the dig site under a microscope, they could tell that the site was exposed only for a short period of time. This means that when the stone tools were effectively preserved when they got buried. Campisano, Aldeias and the other researchers took years of slow, meticulous excavation before they could fully unearth the stone tools. In the process of digging these out, the researchers also came across a layer of bones and hundreds of other stone tool fragments, indicating that there was human activity in the area and that these humans were chipping away at stones in order to make knives.”
Of course, the claim is made that these stone tools were used, not by homo sapiens, but by our hominid ancestors. That begs the question about human origins, assuming the correctness of the African Eve idea of humans being relatively young. For all we know, we may not be. The ages are changing all of the time:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/06/the-oldest-known-human-fossils-have-been-found-in-an-unusual-place/529452/