Might early humans lived in rainforests (instead of savannas) over 150,000 years ago?
- sciart0
- Mar 4
- 1 min read
Excerpt: For generations, scientists looked to the East African savanna as the birthplace of our species. But recently some researchers have put forward a different history: Homo sapiens evolved across the entire continent over the past several hundred thousand years.
If this Africa-wide theory were true, then early humans must have figured out how to live in many environments beyond grasslands. A study published Wednesday shows that as early as 150,000 years ago, some of them lived deep in a West African rainforest.
“What we’re seeing is that, from a very early stage, ecological diversification is at the heart of our species,” said Eleanor Scerri, an evolutionary archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany, and an author of the study.