About 50 thousand years ago, a wave of humans left Africa and expanded through every corner of the world. From that migratory wave, known as ‘out of Africa’, all non -Africans descend. But, as fossils demonstrate, there were previously other attempts that were not so successful.
Why was that migration so decisive and the previous ones did not have so much tour?
According to a study published Wednesday in Nature magazine, before starting its expansion by Eurasia 50 thousand years ago, humans learned to survive in a variety of habitats in Africa and to practice new life forms.
To do the study, the team of scientists, led by Eleanor Scerri, of the Max Planck Institute of Geoantropology of Germany, and by Andrea Manica, of the University of Cambridge, compiled environmental information and data of archaeological deposits of all Africa that date from 120 thousand and 14 thousand years ago.
With all this, the authors developed a mathematical model that generated predictions on the different climatic conditions of different eras and places and associated them with the geographical distribution of humans to reconstruct the suitability of the habitat for our species.
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Thus they discovered that humans began to expand 70 thousand years ago by West, central and northern Africa and prosper in diverse habitats and as unknown until then as forests or deserts.
The study defends that this greater adaptability was learning that prepared humans to face the various conditions they would find later by colonizing environments as different from Africa as Eurasia or Oceania.
That adaptability or previous preparation was what explained the success of the expansion that happened about 50 thousand years ago and colonized to the rest of the world.
“Unlike humans who dispersed outside Africa, the human groups that moved to Eurasia about 50 thousand years ago were equipped with distinctive ecological flexibility as a result of having had to deal with climatic habitats,” said Scerri.
“This is likely to provide a key mechanism for the adaptive success of our species beyond its African homeland,” concluded the paleontologist.
Ecological engineering, the key to success
For the head of the Paleoantropology Group of the National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN-CSIC), Antonio Rosas, this study, “serious and well founded”, reinforces the idea that “about 70,000 years ago human populations widen their ability to live in environments that had previously been hostile such as forests or deserts,” he explained in statements to the EFE agency.
The study indicates that during those years there was no qualitative leap of the lithic industry that could justify the widening of the ecological niche of humans and argues that it was the cultural tools that made possible their progressive adaptation to all kinds of environments.
“Although the work does not explore what these cultural, cognitive or behavior variables are that facilitated the widening of humans, cites examples of other authors who have previously studied these innovations such as developing technologies to store water, use the fire to open spaces in the forests or change the diet,” Rosas explained.
“The authors of the work are called ‘Ecological Engineering’, that is, the novelties of the cultural, behavioral and cognitive type that potentially helped to overcome the ecological niche of humans” and that were the basis of the success of migration known as ‘Out of Africa,’ said Antonio Rosas.
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The work, in fact, explains that the previous dispersions took place at especially favorable moments in the desert belt of the Sahara and Arabia that created ‘green runners’ that helped men reach Eurasia.
However, although 50 thousand years ago, that route to leave Africa already had more difficult conditions than in previous periods, “that expansion was considerable and successful”, probably thanks to the learning acquired in the African continent, the main co -author Andrea Manica concludes.
With EFE information
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