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Climate effects on archaic human habitats and species successions

Timmermann, Axel, Yun, Kyung-Sook, Raia, Pasquale, Ruan, Jiaoyang, Mondanaro, Alessandro, Zeller, Elke, Zollikofer, Christoph, Ponce de León, Marcia, Lemmon, Danielle, Willeit, Matteo, Ganopolski, Andrey·2022·Nature
DOI 10.1038/s41586-022-04600-9PMC PMC9021022
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Abstract

It has long been believed that climate shifts during the last 2 million years had a pivotal role in the evolution of our genus Homo 1–3 . However, given the limited number of representative palaeo-climate datasets from regions of anthropological interest, it has remained challenging to quantify this linkage. Here, we use an unprecedented transient Pleistocene coupled general circulation model simulation in combination with an extensive compilation of fossil and archaeological records to study the spatiotemporal habitat suitability for five hominin species over the past 2 million years. We show that astronomically forced changes in temperature, rainfall and terrestrial net primary production had a major impact on the observed distributions of these species. During the Early Pleistocene, hominins settled primarily in environments with weak orbital-scale climate variability. This behaviour changed substantially after the mid-Pleistocene transition, when archaic humans became global wanderers who adapted to a wide range of spatial climatic gradients. Analysis of the simulated hominin habitat overlap from approximately 300–400 thousand years ago further suggests that antiphased climate disruptions in southern Africa and Eurasia contributed to the evolutionary transformation of Homo heidelbergensis populations into Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, respectively. Our robust numerical simulations of climate-induced habitat changes provide a framework to test hypotheses on our human origin.

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Metadata

Authors
Timmermann, A., Yun, K.-S., Raia, P., Ruan, J., Mondanaro, A., Zeller, E., Zollikofer, C., Ponce de León, M., Lemmon, D., Willeit, M., & Ganopolski, A.
ORCID
Venue
Nature
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2022-04-13
Volume
604
Issue
7906
Pages
495-501
ISSN
  • 0028-0836
  • 1476-4687
DOI
10.1038/s41586-022-04600-9
PMC
PMC9021022
Cited by
152
References
7
Language
en
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