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Several close relatives of our species, homo sapiens, have walked this Earth since the genre Homo it evolved more than 2 million years ago. These hominins lived in different habitats and harsh environments. Some have even crossed and crossed.
Although more than one may have achieved significant technological and cognitive milestones, such as controlling fire, developing stone tools, or making clothes, today only us, H. sapiens, survive.
Scholars have debated a lot about our current exclusivity. Some have proposed it H. sapiens‘better technological skills may have given us an edge over others. Others suggested that we would eat a more varied diet or be more efficient runners than other hominins.
Meanwhile, other researchers speculate that given the high levels of crossbreeding, some hominins may not have become extinct as much as they have completely merged with our gene pool.
The researchers also speculated that climate change may have played a role in the extinction of Homo species. In a new study, published in the journal One Land, a multidisciplinary team of scientists from Italy, the UK and Brazil argues that this factor was the main driver of the extinction of other hominins.
The authors believe the findings could serve as a warning as humanity faces human-caused climate change today.
“Even the powerhouse of the brain in the animal kingdom, [the Homo genus], it cannot survive climate change when it becomes too extreme, “says paleontologist Pasquale Raia, of the University of Naples Federico II, one of the authors of the study.” People should look after this, given the current chaos we are causing. “
For this study, the team focused on only six of the recognized ones Homo species: H. habilis, H. ergaster, H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, H. neanderthalensis, is H. sapiens. They omitted others because the fossil record available was too limited for their analysis.
Using a fossil database covering 2,754 archaeological records, the researchers mapped where these species lived over time, linking both the fossil evidence and the tools associated with each species to various locations and time periods.
They also applied a statistical modeling technique called a past climate emulator that uses available records to reconstruct climatic conditions, including temperature and rainfall, over the past 5 million years.
“This offers a picture of the enormous effects that climatic adversities have had,” says anthropologist Giorgio Manzi.
For three of the five extinct species – H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, is H. neanderthalensis – a sudden and severe climate change occurred on the planet just before these species became extinct. The climates have gotten colder for all three, drier for H. heildelbergensis and Neanderthal, and more humid for H. erectus. According to Raia, the temperature change was around 4-5 degrees Celsius, on annual averages.
The researchers also assessed how vulnerable these species were to extinction by trying to determine their tolerance to climate change over time, using their presence in various locations as a clue to their preferred niche.
The team determined that, before disappearing, H. erectus is H. heidelbergensis lost more than half of their niche due to climate change. The Neanderthals have lost about a quarter. Food sources likely declined as habitats changed, and cold weather may have threatened survival for species adapted to warmer climates.
This explanation of the climate doesn’t necessarily mean that other extinction factors weren’t important either – the authors note that competition with H. sapiens, for example, it could have made matters worse for Neanderthals – but Raia and her colleagues believe their analysis reveals “the main factor” in the past. Homo extinctions.
The extinction of Neanderthals has been studied – and debated – quite a bit, but the loss of other hominid species has received little attention, says archaeologist Tyler Faith, of the University of Utah, who was not involved in the study. . This new study represents the first attempt to understand how multiple it is Homo species have become extinct over large swaths of space and time, he says.
“But I think it’s a little early to discard other potential extinction mechanisms,” adds Faith. He notes that the limited fossil record for some species makes it difficult to get a complete picture of environmental or climatic conditions than others Homo species could handle.
Similarly, the anthropologist Giorgio Manzi, of the La Sapienza University of Rome, who did not collaborate on the study, notes that many elements should be taken into account to explain the disappearance of the past Homo species.
The relationship between climate change and extinction is complex, he says, and does not always lead to one another: “Over the past million years, various sudden climate failures and environmental crises are known. These circumstances have not always led to extinctions. “.
However, Manzi believes the new work reasonably demonstrates that climate change can have a big impact.
“This offers a picture of the enormous effects that climatic adversities have had on human populations of different species,” says Manzi.
With the planet expected to warm up to 5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100, more climate challenges lie ahead.
This work first appeared on SAPIENS under a CC BY-ND 4.0 license. Read the original here.
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