Humans already lived in African jungles 150 thousand years ago

Madrid. New evidence shows that humans lived in tropical jungles at least 150 thousand years in Africa, the home of our species, long before what was thought.

Our species originated in Africa about 300 thousand years ago, but the ecological and environmental contexts of our evolution are still little understood. In the search for answers, tropical jungles have often overlooked, generally thought of as natural barriers to the human room.

Now, in a new study published in Naturean international team of researchers challenges this vision with the discovery that humans lived in tropical jungles within the current ivory coast long before what was previously believed.

The article reveals that human groups lived in tropical jungles at least 150 thousand years ago and argues that human evolution occurred in a variety of regions and habitats.

The history of this discovery begins in the 80s, when the co-author, Professor Yodé Guédé of the Félix Houuchouët-Boigny University, in a joint ivory-Soviet mission, investigated the site. The results of this initial study revealed a deeply stratified grave that contained stone tools in an area that today is a tropical jungle. But the age of these or the ecology of the site could not be determined when they were deposited there, according to a statement from the University of Liverpool, which participated in the study.

Several recent climatic models suggested that the area could also have been a tropical jungle refuge in the past, even during dry periods of forest fragmentationExplains Professor Eleanor Scerri, leader of the Human Paleosystems Research Group at the Max Planck Institute of Geoantropology and main author of the study.

We knew that the site presented the best possible opportunity to find out to what extent in the past the room extended in the rainforest.

Therefore, the Human Paleosystems team organized a mission to investigate the site.