People appeared in Africa about 300 thousand years ago. Although this Pan -African -Update process implies various environments in human history, The role of tropical forests and jungles is still not understood.
According to this study, there is a clear link between the material culture of the late Middle Pleistocene and F. Dating methods due to optically stimulated luminescence and electronic spin resonance limit the start of human professions in Bété I, about 150,000 years and connect them with El Homo Sapiens.
People and jungles
New sediment analysis performed in the Bété I deposit, in Ivory Coast, indicates that the Homo Sapiens habit primordial disadvantages Tropical West Africa at least 150,000 years ago. So far, the Older test confirmed with human presence in these environments from 18,000 years ago fromS, while in Southeast Asia 70,000 years ago it was documented.
Research has had the participation of scientists from the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (Censieh) of Burgos, responsible for the Dating -analysis by electronic spin resonance (ESR).
The research, whose Results are published in the magazine Nature” have been the key to specify the seniority of the remains and confirm that the environment was A dense and wet forestNo strip of sporadic vegetation.
«Before our studies, this was hired Tropical jungles were natural barriers for the first people«, Eslem Ben Aous explains, researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Geoantropology and Cenieh. “Our data show that Homo Sapiens was able to adapt to this environment long before we thought.”
I pour
The Bété I site was first dug up in the 1980s by Yodé Guédé, from the Félix Houuchouët-Boigny University. In 2020, a team led by Eleanor Scerri, from the Max Planck Institute, will resume the site before it was destroyed by mining activity. «We knew that It was the best opportunity to determine, because when people lived in the jungle«, Affirm Scerri.
The authors also investigated plant remains, pollen and fitolites present in the sediments, which confirm that the landscape was one at that time Selva Close, similar to the current one. “The Convergent tests confirm that ecological diversity was the key in the evolution of our species“, Says Scerri. «Different populations of Homo Sapiens existed alongside different habitats; They exchanged knowledge and adapted to various environments ».
This discovery Does not only define knowledge about human evolution in AfricaBut it raises new questions about how people have influenced ecosystems over time. Researchers are planning to analyze other deposits in the region to the history of the first human populations in the Selva tropical.