Early people returned to the rainforests far earlier than previously assumed

Modern people developed around 300,000 years ago, but only began to inhabit rainforests much later. In fact, the earliest archaeological evidence for people who live in rainforest habitats is only about 70,000 years old. Surprising new studies suggest that the schedule extends more than 80,000 years into the past.

After an international team of researchers has again invested a location in today’s Côte d’Ivoire, an international team of researchers claims that people (people (homo sapiens) I lived in rainforests 150,000 years ago – counters of thousands of years earlier than the scholars. As in a study published in the magazine today NatureResearch confirms the idea that different landscapes influenced human evolution and not just open savannas and grass landscapes.

“Before our study, the oldest secure proof of the apartment in African rainforests was about 18 thousand years ago and the oldest evidence of rainforest settlements everywhere from Southeast Asia about 70 thousand years ago” Institute for Geoanthropology and main author of the study in a statement. “This presses back the oldest known evidence of people in rainforests through more than double previously known estimate.”

Yodé Guédé, co-author of the study by the Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny, studied the place in question in the 1980s for the first time. Guédé and colleagues discovered a layered place with stone tools in a rainforest of the Côte d’Ivoire, but could not determine the age of the tools.

“With the help of Professor Guédé, we moved the original ditch and were able to use it with state -of -the -art methods that were not available thirty to forty years ago. The team found that the website was 150,000 years old. They also analyzed the presence of plant residues in sediment samples to confirm that the region was a rainforest all the years ago.

“Convergent evidence undoubtedly show that the ecological diversity is the focus of our species,” said Eleanor Scerri, archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology and Study Rank. “This reflects a complex story of (((homo sapiens) Location in which various populations lived in different regions and habitat types, ”she added. “We now have to ask how these early human niche expansions affected the plants and animals that shared the same niche space with people. In other words, how far does the human change in untouched natural habitats go back? “

Accordingly Savanna hypothesis of human evolutionThe transition of our old human ancestors of forested living spaces to open landscapes to millions of years ago favored the development of crucial characteristics and behaviors such as two -betalism, the use of tools and hunting strategies. Ultimately, the study calls for the tendency to overlook the role of rainforests in the episode of modern people, and question what, if at all, a further development by some members of our species that have decided to go back under trees life. And at Scerri’s point, this raises important questions about the potential types in which our species have changed these rainforests when they return.

Ultimately, the study rewrites the history of prehistoric human habitats and paves the way to examine the long -exaggerated role of rainforests in the development of modern people.