Modern humans evolved around 300,000 year ago , but only begin live rainforests much later . In fact , the earliest archaeological evidence of humans living in rainforest habitats is only about 70,000 years old . Surprising new research suggests that the timeline extends more than 80,000 years further into the past times .
After reinvestigating a site in forward-looking - day Côte d’Ivoire , an international squad of researchers arrogate that humans ( Homo sapiens ) commence survive in rain forest as ahead of time as 150,000 old age ago — tens of thousands of years to begin with than scholars had antecedently posited . As detailed in a field published today in the journalNature , the research confirm the mind that a diverseness of dissimilar landscape influence human development , and not just open savannas and grassland .
“ Before our study , the oldest dependable evidence for habitation in African rainforests was around 18 thousand years ago and the oldest evidence of rainforest habitation anywhere amount from southeasterly Asia at about 70 thousand years ago , ” Eslem Ben Arous , an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and top author of the bailiwick , read in a financial statement . “ This pushes back the oldest know evidence of humans in rain forest by more than double the previously know estimate . ”
The rainforest site in Côte d’Ivoire.© Jimbob Blinkhorn
Yodé Guédé , a co - writer on the study from the Université Félix Houphouët - Boigny , first studied the placement in question in the 1980s . Guédé and workfellow name a stratified situation with endocarp putz in a Côte d’Ivoire rain forest , but were ineffective to mold the geezerhood of the tools .
“ With Professor Guédé ’s aid , we relocate the original trench and were able to re - investigate it using State Department of the art methods that were not available thirty to forty years ago , ” explained James Blinkhorn , an archaeologist at the University of Liverpool who participated in the study . The team find out the site to be 150,000 years erstwhile . They also analyze the front of plant life remains within sediment sampling to confirm that the region had been a rain forest all those year ago .
“ Convergent evidence picture beyond doubt that ecological diversity sits at the heart of our metal money , ” said Eleanor Scerri , an archeologist at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and study senior generator . “ This reflects a complex chronicle of [ Homo sapiens ] population section , in which different populations lived in unlike regions and habitat type , ” she added . “ We now need to take how these former human corner elaboration impacted the industrial plant and animals that shared the same niche - space with man . In other row , how far back does human revision of pristine lifelike home ground go ? ”
A prehistoric stone tool at the Côte d’Ivoire site. © Jimbob Blinkhorn, MPG
According tosavanna hypothesis of human phylogeny , our ancient human antecedent ’s transition from forested habitat to open landscape painting million of years ago favour the ontogenesis of crucial features and behaviors such bipedalism , the utilization of shaft , and hunt strategies . The field at last challenge the inclination to miss the function of rain forest in the consequent ontogeny of forward-looking humans , and question what , if any , further phylogenesis hap as a result of some penis of our mintage choosing to live among trees again . And to Scerri ’s dot , this raises important questions about the potential way in which our species altered these rain forest upon their tax return .
Ultimately , the study rewrites the history of prehistorical human habitats , and pave the way for hit the books the long - unmarked role of rainforests in the growing of modern man .
Homo sapiensHuman evolutionrainforests
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