A frigid apocalypse doomed early humans in Europe
Long before our species Homo sapiens trekked out of Africa, earlier human species also spread to other parts of the world. That dispersal, however, sometimes encountered grave hardships.
The frigid interval - comparable in intensity to the more recent ice ages - appears to have rendered Europe inhospitable for the bands of early human hunter-gatherers, as extreme glaciation deprived them of food resources. Their cold tolerance may have been lacking, without sufficient fat insulation, while fashioning effective clothing and shelter and finding the means to make fire would have been challenging, the researchers said.
“Contrary to previous beliefs, our study demonstrates that human occupation of Europe was not continuous, but rather punctuated by at least one regional climate-induced extinction,” said climate physicist and study co-author Axel Timmermann of Pusan National University in South Korea. The researchers reconstructed the ancient climate based on organic compounds left by tiny algae and pollen content in a deep-sea sediment core drilled off Portugal’s coast that revealed temperature and vegetation changes. They ran computer simulations to gauge effects on human habitats, with average air temperatures dropping by about 8 degrees Fahrenheit .
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