INSTITUTE OF BASIC SCIENCE
CREDIT: INSTITUTE OF BASIC SCIENCE
A study published in Nature by an international team of scientists provides clear evidence of a link between astronomical climate change and human evolution.
By combining the richest database of fossil remains and the best dated archaeological artifacts with an unprecedented new supercomputer model that simulates the earth’s climate history over 2 years. Over the past million years, a team of experts in climate modeling, anthropology, and ecology has been able to determine what ancient conditions humans may have lived in (Figure 1).
The impact of climate change on human evolution has long been suspected, but is difficult to prove because climate records near human fossil sites are scant. To get around this, the team instead investigated what the climate was like in their computer simulations at the time and place where humans lived, according to archaeological records. This reveals the preferred environmental conditions of different groups of hominins[1]. From there, the team searched for all the places and times when those conditions occurred in the model, creating a map that evolved over time of potential hominin habitats.
Lead author Axel Timmermann said: “Although different groups of ancient humans preferred different climates, their habitats all responded to climate change caused by these changes. Astronomical space in the Earth’s axis oscillates, tilts, and eccentrics its orbit with a period ranging from 21 to 400 thousand years,” said lead author Axel Timmermann and director of the Center for Climate Physics. IBS (ICCP) at Pusan National University, Korea.
To test the certainty of the link between climate and human habitat, the scientists repeated their analysis, but with the age of the fossils shuffled like a deck of cards. If the past evolution of climate variables did not affect where and when humans lived, then both approaches would result in similar habitats. However, the researchers found significant differences in the habitat patterns of the three most recent groups of hominins (Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo heidelbergensis) when using shuffled and actual fossil ages. “This result implies that for at least the last 500,000 years, the true sequence of past climate change, including glacial cycles, played a central role in determining where other groups of hominins were located. where each other lived and where their remains were found,” said Professor Timmermann.
“The next question we asked was whether the habitats of different species overlap in space and time. Past regions of contact provide important information on the inheritance of species and potential mixtures,” said Professor Pasquale Raia from the University of Naples Federico II, Naples, Italy, who was with the team of I compiled a dataset of human fossils and archaeological artifacts used in this study. From the contact zone analysis, the researchers then derived a hominin family tree, according to which Neanderthals and possibly Denisovans descended from the Eurasian tribe of Homo heidelbergensis about 500-400 thousand years ago, while Homo sapiens’ The origin can be traced to late South African populations Homo heidelbergensis about 300 thousand years ago.
“Dr. Jiaoyang Ruan, co-author of the study, and postdoctoral fellow at the IBS Center for Climate Physics.
The new study was carried out using one of Korea’s fastest supercomputers called Aleph. Located at the Institute of Basic Science’s headquarters in Daejeon, Aleph ran non-stop for over 6 months to complete the longest comprehensive climate model to date. “The model generates 500 Terabytes of data, enough to fill hundreds of hard disks,” said Dr. Kyung-Sook Yun, a researcher at the IBS Center for Climate Physics who conducted the experiments. “This is the first continuous simulation with a modern climate model to include the earth’s environmental history over the past 2 million years, representing climate responses to the formation and weakening of oceans. ice sheets, past changes in greenhouse gas concentrations, as well as a marked shift in the frequency of glacial cycles about 1 million years ago,” added Dr. Yun.
“Until now, the paleontological community has not utilized the full potential of such continuous paleontological model simulations. Our study clearly illustrates the value of well-proved climate models for addressing fundamental questions about our human origins,” said Professor Christoph Zollikofer from the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Si and co-author of the study said.
Going beyond the question of early human habitat, the time and place of human origin, the team further tackles how humans may have adapted to different food sources in the past. over 2 million years. “When we looked at the data for five major groups of hominins, we discovered an interesting pattern. The early African hominins about 2-1 million years ago preferred stable climatic conditions. This restricts them to relatively narrow habitable corridors. After a major climate transition about 800,000 years ago, a group known as umbrellas Homo heidelbergensis Elke Zeller, a PhD student at Pusan National University and a co-author of the study.
“Our study documents that climate played a fundamental role in the evolution of genera Homo. Professor Axel Timmermann said: “We are who we are because we have managed to adapt over millennia to the slow change of climate in the past.
[1]This study looked at the following hominin species: Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo heidelbergensis (including African and European populations), Homo erectus and early Africa Homo (including Homo ergaster and Homo habilis).
Youtube Links: https://youtu.be/MNJ-RnhBVkU
JOURNEYS
Nature
DOI
RESEARCH METHODS
Experimental study
RESEARCH SUBJECTS
Do not apply
ARTICLE TITLE
Effects of climate on ancient human habitats and the development of species
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
April 13, 2022
Related
