It is estimated that the first archaic humans arrived on the Iberian Peninsula 1.4 million years ago from southwest Asia. And according to the most accepted theories, these same humans would have remained in southern Europe until today. However, a new study published in the journal Science seems to indicate that history may not have been so.
An international team led by researchers from University College London (UCL), the Institute for Environmental Diagnostics and Water Studies (IDAEA-CSIC) and the IBS Center for Climate Physics in South Korea has discovered the occurrence of “extreme glacial conditions”. about 1.12 million years ago. Until now unknown meteorological conditions that have led to different historical conclusions by scientists.
“To our surprise, we discovered that the cooling was comparable to the most extreme events of the recent ice ages,” says Professor Joan Grimalt, a CSIC researcher at IDAEA. “This challenges the idea of ??an early and permanent human occupation of Europe,” explains UCL professor Chronis Tzedakis.
The results of the study suggest that the Iberian Peninsula, and southern Europe more generally, was depopulated at least once in the Early Pleistocene. The harsh weather conditions would have subjected the small bands of hunter-gatherers to considerable stress: “Early humans may have lacked adaptations such as sufficient insulation from fat, as well as effective clothing, shelter, or knowledge of how to make fire,” says the researcher Vasiliki Margari.
The apparent absence of stone tools and human remains for the next 200,000 years raises the possibility of a long-term hiatus in European occupation. “If this is true,” says Professor Chris Stringer, from the Natural History Museum in London and co-author of the study, “Europe may have been recolonized around 900,000 years ago by more resistant hominins, with evolutionary or behavioral changes that allowed their survival. ”.
The researchers have confirmed their different hypotheses by reconstructing the conditions behind a marine sedimentary core off the coast of Portugal. The witness in question has shown the presence of abrupt climatic changes that culminated in extreme glacial cooling more than a million years ago.
In addition, to assess the impact of climate on early human populations, researchers at the IBS Center for Climate Physics have developed a habitat suitability model that relates climate data obtained to fossil and archaeological evidence of human occupation in the south-west. from Eurasia compiled by researchers at the Natural History Museum in London and the British Museum.
