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Early <keyword id="6359982" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="earth" source="Orion">Earth</keyword> was hardly static, and neither were its inhabitants. Ancient humans had none of the luxuries of modern technology, yet they outlived many other species on their blood-filled path to the top of the food chain. But what type of terrain and weather did they have to navigate during this journey? A new study sheds light. New international research has revealed that early humans were not constrained to any single biome, and as the climate fluctuated — often between extremes — they had to adapt to a variety of land spaces and food resources. The Earth was throwing an increasing number of climate tantrums over the past three million years, making it particularly hard for the budding genus Homo to attain stable footing. While we know how the success story ends, scientists don't know whether our ancestors managed to just adjust local environmental shifts, or if they actively sniffed out more stable environments with better resources. To get to the bottom of this mystery, researchers compiled data from more than three thousand well-dated human fossils and archaeological sites, spanning six species of ancient humans. In addition, they modelled simulations to determine what kind of biomes they dwelled in during their time on the planet. "For the archaeological and anthropological sites and corresponding ages, we extracted the local biome types from our climate-driven vegetation model. This revealed which biomes were favoured by the extinct hominin species H. ergaster, H. habilis, H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, and H. neanderthalensis and by our direct ancestors – H. sapiens,” explains lead author Elke Zeller. Interestingly, they found that the early groups, originating in Africa around 3 million years ago, preferred open areas such as savannahs and grasslands. Then came the Eurasia migration around 1.8 million years ago, where the H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis somehow managed to develop higher tolerances to other biomes, moving to the colder and much-less open temperate and boreal forests. "To survive as forest-dwellers, these groups developed more advanced stone tools and likely also social skills”, notes Pasquale Raia, a co-author. All of these characteristics boomed with the advent of H. sapiens around two lakh years ago in Africa, making them the jack and master of all adaptation trades. The team also found that we eventually chanced on areas with a ton of biome diversity, and everyone wanted to set up shop in these parts. This new preference undoubtedly played a huge role in human evolution and was likely a massive driver of socioeconomic development. "What that means is that our human ancestors had a liking for mosaic landscapes, with a great variety of plant and animal resources in close proximity”, remarked Axel Timmermann, another co-author of the study. This was apparent on even continental scales, and the researchers have thus suggested that the success of Homo sapiens might suggest that we might be specially equipped to exploit such heterogeneous biomes. Even though humans are stressed constantly about the warming climate, rising oceans, and the unending plethora of daggers that <keyword id="6361617" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword> threatens to strike into our necks, it can be worthwhile to remember humans remain the masters of adaptation. <h2>Recommended stories:</h2> <div type="Article" hostid="261" msid="101577303" title="Our brains grew tinier when the Earth warmed up in the past. Will global warming repeat things?" mstype="2" mssubtype="0"><payload><![CDATA[seealso]]></payload></div>

Climate change was rampant in the ancient past. So how did our primitive ancestors survive?

Finally, Europe has found a place on the map that pinpoints the areas where <keyword id="163713" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Early-humans">early humans</keyword> existed much before the current human species or <keyword id="602546" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Homo-sapiens">Homo sapiens</keyword> came into being. According to a recent report published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE, British scientists, on a routine geological survey, have discovered the <keyword id="214190" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Footprints">footprints</keyword> of ancient humans called <keyword id="2064704" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Hominins">hominins</keyword> on the <keyword id="2064715" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Muddy-bank">muddy bank</keyword> of an <keyword id="2064717" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Estuary">estuary</keyword> at <keyword id="2064705" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Happisburgh">Happisburgh</keyword> in <keyword id="86049" type="CITY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Norfolk">Norfolk</keyword>. These <keyword id="2064706" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Footmarks">footmarks</keyword> are about 800,000 years old and look like they belonged to a group of adults and children – probably that of a family. 
 However, these are not the oldest footmarks left by our ancient ancestors. You will find such footprints at <keyword id="2064707" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Laetoli">Laetoli</keyword> in <keyword id="89578" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Tanzania">Tanzania</keyword> dating back to 3.5 million years while those found at <keyword id="2064708" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ileret">Ileret</keyword> and <keyword id="1179917" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Koobi-Fora">Koobi Fora</keyword> in <keyword id="6360004" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Kenya">Kenya</keyword> are about 1.5 million years old. But the hominin footprints found in the UK are the oldest outside <keyword id="12925" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="Africa">Africa</keyword>, clearly indicating that our ancestors evolved in <keyword id="686724" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Continental-Europe">continental Europe</keyword> as well. After all, <keyword id="6355981" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="England">England</keyword> was not much like an island in those days and was connected to the continental Europe. 
 Scientists analysed the shallow prints using multi-image <keyword id="2064709" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Photogrammetry">photogrammetry</keyword>, a technique that combines digital photographs to create a permanent record. The final output shows that the hollows are distinctly elongated and tally with the foot sizes of hominins from different age-groups. In many cases, one can distinctly identify the heel, the arch and even the toes. 
 
In case you are curious, let us tell you these foot sizes match the modern shoe sizes of 7 or 8 in UK/India. The US equivalent will be size 8 or 9 while the European equivalent will be 41 or 42. The biggest footprints could be that of a male while the smaller ones, varying in size, could be left by women and children. 
 
As for height, the hominins seem to resemble the Homo sapiens and their heights varied between 2'11" and 5'6" (depending on age). Another interesting point is that each walked on their two feet, which means these ancient people were fully bipedal. 
 “This is an extraordinarily rare discovery,” said <keyword id="1295177" type="PERSON" weightage="80" keywordseo="Nick-Ashton">Nick Ashton</keyword> of the <keyword id="173563" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="British-Museum">British Museum</keyword>, who led the research team, which also involved the National History Museum and Queen Mary University London. “At first we weren’t sure what we were seeing,” Dr Ashton told the media. “But as we removed any remaining beach sand and sponged off the seawater, it was clear that the hollows resembled prints and that we needed to record the surface as quickly as possible before the sea eroded it away,” he said. 
 But what is the real identity of the <keyword id="2064711" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Happisburgh-hominins">Happisburgh hominins</keyword> whose footmarks indicated that they were travelling south, treading the mud-flats along the river edge? Going by several points of similarity regarding body stature and the period in history when they existed, some experts believe that they might have belonged to the species called <keyword id="2064713" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Homo-antecessor">Homo antecessor</keyword> or <keyword id="2064703" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Pioneer-Man">Pioneer Man</keyword>, whose fossil remains have been found at <keyword id="1329916" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Atapuerca">Atapuerca</keyword> in <keyword id="6363645" type="COUNTRY" weightage="100" keywordseo="Spain">Spain</keyword>. 
 Homo antecessor might have become extinct from Europe some 600,000 years ago and next came <keyword id="1453378" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Homo-heidelbergensis">Homo heidelbergensis</keyword>, followed by the <keyword id="528865" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Neanderthals">Neanderthals</keyword> and finally, the modern humans or Homo sapiens, who came into existence some 40,000 years ago. 
 
Image: Wikipedia

Footprints
In The Mud Of Time Indicate Early Humans Treaded European Shores

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Researchers have been known to name species after celebrities.</li><li>Honoring a celebrity this way can show their fandom or bring attention to the animal itself.</li></ul>Taylor Swift has one. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-new-snake-species-central-america-named-after-leonardo-dicaprio-2023-2">Leonardo DiCaprio</a> has a handful. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/first-photo-david-attenboroughs-echidna-2023-11">David Attenborough</a>? Too many to count. The list of species named for celebrities is lengthy and includes everything from flies (Beyoncé) to lichen (Oprah Winfrey) to lizards (<a href="https://www.insider.com/lionel-messi-net-worth-how-soccer-star-makes-spends-money-2022-8">Lionel Messi</a>). An eponym is a scientific species name based on a person, either real or fictional. When scientists name a species after someone famous, it can often make headlines and draw attention to less-charismatic animals or plants, like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-sea-snail-named-after-margarita-because-bright-yellow-color-2023-10">Jimmy Buffet's snail</a> or <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/19-ferns-named-after-lady-gaga-2012-10">Lady Gaga's ferns</a>. Some researchers say it's a way to bring attention to spiders and other animals who are otherwise ignored. Others are simply fans or want to acknowledge celebrities' environmental activism, as with Sericomyrmex radioheadi, an ant named for the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/radiohead-releases-hacked-recordings-bandcamp-150000-ransom-2019-6">carbon-conscious band Radiohead</a>.Certain species have physical or behavioral traits that suit a famous person or an acting role. Tarantobelus jeffdanielsi is a tarantula-killing roundworm named in honor of Jeff Daniels' character in the movie "Arachnophobia." Yet some experts see <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fish-do-not-exist-2016-8">naming a species</a> after any famous person as a recipe for "nomenclatural regret." Should a celebrity fall from their pedestal, what will it mean for the spiders or slugs left in the wake of their scandal? <h2>The case for Taylor Swift's millipede</h2>A Virginia Tech researcher made headlines for naming a millipede after Taylor Swift. It seemed like a smart move, as everyday arthropods rarely make history, and this sort of publicity can help bring awareness, according to a <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cobi.14184" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent paper</a>.University of Oxford biologist Katie Blake and her co-authors found that species with celebrity names had almost three times as many page views on Wikipedia as non-famously monikered control species.But whether those views actually translate to better conservation efforts needs further study.<div type="image" title="A tiger shark swims close to the camera in the Bahamas." height="2847" width="3797" msid="105167412" hostid="261" sizebytes="268394"></div>And it's not clear if the attention is always positive, especially if the celebrity figure is more infamous than famous. "We need more work to better understand how species are affected when named after someone who is fairly controversial," Blake said. "Not only in terms of attitudes towards these species, but conservation action, too, where needed." While Blake thinks celebrity names can draw attention to amphibians and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/octopuses-crabs-lobsters-recognized-as-sentient-beings-in-uk-2021-11">invertebrates</a> "who aren't exactly the public's favorite taxa, the consequences of naming them after someone who is disliked may worsen such species' conservation status."That's one reason why some scientists want to rename a blind cave beetle. <h2>The push to save a beetle named after Hitler </h2>Part of a scientific name's appeal is that it's unchanging and the same in every language. But recently, researchers have begun proposing <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/tax.12821">making changes</a> to "scientific names that commemorate historical individuals who committed egregious crimes against humanity."Christopher Bae, a professor of anthropology at the University of Hawai'i at Mano, and his colleagues were more specific, stating that names with "tyrants, dictators, colonialists, and slave traders" should be changed. Some examples include Adolf Hitler, Cecil Rhodes, and George Hibbert, all of whom have species named after them. Hitler actually has two insects named after him. One, the Rochlingia hitleri, has been extinct for millions of years. The other is a rare cave-dwelling beetle, Anophthalmus hitleri. <div type="image" title="Rocky formations in Krizna Jama Cave, Cross Cave, in Grahovo, Slovenia." height="1499" width="1999" msid="105167413" hostid="261" sizebytes="495664"></div>Scientists <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.358.6367.1116" target="_blank" rel="noopener">have warned</a> that the cave beetle is threatened by poachers. "These collectors are going out and collecting and then selling them on the internet to Neo-Nazis because they're memorabilia now," Bae said. Another example is the many species named for the imperialist Cecil John Rhodes who pushed for British expansion into southern Africa and <a href="https://www.oriel.ox.ac.uk/cecil-rhodes-racial-segregation-in-the-cape-colony-and-violence-in-zimbabwe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supported</a> racial segregation. His name is splashed across the biological world, including many plant names stemming from the Rhodesia region, what is now known as Zimbabwe and Zambia. Right now, the debate over whether to use a Rhodes-derived name is especially pertinent for paleoanthropologists who study <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/40000-year-bone-hints-humans-neanderthals-shared-cave-culture-2023-8">early human ancestors</a>. There's a label, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/human-ancestors-were-down-1300-faced-extinction-900000-years-ago-2023-9">Homo heidelbergensis</a>, that's such a mishmash of species, that it's no longer a meaningful designation, according to Bae. Instead, researchers want to introduce a new name for an ancestor of modern humans. <div type="image" title="View of a skull of an adult Homo heidelbergensis found in Spain in 1992 sits on display at the Museum of Human Evolution in 2010." height="1300" width="1733" msid="105167414" hostid="261" sizebytes="74240"></div>If they were to follow the traditional naming practice, then the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature's rules state that the first name given to a species gets priority on being the scientific name, so the species would be called Homo rhodesiensis. A human skull found in Zambia was given that name in 1921. However, Bae and many of his colleagues aren't eager to start using the name Homo rhodesiensis, especially because of the significance of the species. "This guy had some real serious issues," Bae said of Rhodes.Earlier this year, Bae and over a dozen other paleoanthropologists gathered to discuss the issue, and it was nearly unanimous. Almost no one was in favor of using the Rhodes-derived name.Another name, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-human-ancestor-species-proposed-homo-bodoensis-2021-10">Homo bodoensis</a>, named for Bodo D'ar, Ethiopia, where the skull was found, has been proposed instead. <h2>What would it take to change a species' name? </h2><div type="image" title="A side-by-side of Jimmy Buffett playing guitar on stage and the yellow Cayo margarita snail under the sea." height="1080" width="1440" msid="105167415" hostid="261" sizebytes="97690"></div>There are hundreds of thousands of species with eponymous names, according to the ICZN's estimate. But Bae thinks only a fraction of them reach the level of Hitler, Hibbert, and Rhodes. To protect against frivolous changes, Bae and his co-authors called for an ethics committee to review proposals. "Nobody's going to really want to go after every single name out there," he said. "It's really going to be the egregious ones that need to be looked at more carefully." <div type="image" title="A brontosaurus skeleton on display at the Peabody Museum" height="1500" width="2005" msid="105167416" hostid="261" sizebytes="180970"></div>But names can be changed. Consider the Brontosaurus, which was a genus of dinosaur that was lumped together with the Apatosaurus and then separated again in 2015. The alterations are often made for scientific reasons but not always. The American Ornithological Society is in the process of changing the common English names of bird species named after people. The organization Bird Names for Birds has pushed for the change because many of the animals are named for people who enslaved others or dug up Native American graves. However, the birds' scientific names will remain, as they are much more difficult to change, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/11/01/1209660753/these-american-birds-and-dozens-more-will-be-renamed-to-remove-human-monikers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NPR reported</a>.<h2>Down with all eponyms? </h2>"We already have thousands of species named for people who are now obscure," Stephen B. Heard wrote in his book "Charles Darwin's Barnacle and David Bowie's Spider: How Scientific Names Celebrate Adventurers, Heroes, and Even a Few Scoundrels."That a celebrity might fade from public consciousness isn't the worst thing that could happen, though. Case in point, Hitler's beetle. Chances are most celebrities with eponymous species won't leave a legacy as tarnished as some powerful men of the past. Yet societal norms do change, and it's easy to see how some famous people's reputations changed after the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-metoo-movement-started-where-its-headed-tarana-burke-time-person-of-year-women-2017-12">#MeToo movement</a>, for example. And some researchers would prefer to correct the imbalance of species named mostly after European men from the 19th and 20th centuries, instead naming more species after women and native scientists. Or perhaps changing existing eponyms to be more inclusive. As some researchers <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/tax.12742" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a>, "their names will not be eliminated from history: they will simply move into synonymy," That is, there could one day be a footnote indicating that the species was formerly known as Hitler's beetle.

Naming a species after a celebrity may do more harm than good

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Early human ancestors faced near-extinction between 800,000 and 900,000 years ago, scientists say.</li><li>An extreme climate event might have caused the evolutionary bottleneck.</li></ul>Early human ancestors came close to becoming extinct between 800,000 and 900,000 years ago, scientists say.Scientists believe that an evolutionary bottleneck might have been caused by an extreme climate event, which they estimate left just 1,280 breeding individuals of our ancestors for about 117,000 years, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/aug/31/population-collapse-almost-wiped-out-human-ancestors-say-scientists" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Guardian</a> reported."The numbers that emerge from our study correspond to those of species that are currently at risk of extinction," Giorgio Manzi, an anthropologist at Sapienza University of Rome and a senior author of the study, told the paper.The results were found by conducting a genomics analysis of more than 3,000 living people, per the study published in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq7487" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Science</a>,Professor Chris Stringer, who was not involved in the research but is the head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, told The Guardian: "It's an extraordinary length of time. It's remarkable that we did get through at all. For a population of that size, you just need one bad climate event, an epidemic, a volcanic eruption and you're gone."The population decline appears to come around a time of long periods of glaciation, meaning sea surface temperatures decreased and a drought might have occurred in Africa and Eurasia, per The Guardian.Researchers said that this epoch was also relatively empty on the Earth's fossil record in Africa, which is the collection of fossils found in rock and sediment layers that map out the history of life on the planet.It is possible that the bottleneck was a local phenomenon, as there is not enough evidence to show that there was a global "blank" in the fossil record of early humans, Stringer said.This bottleneck might have led to the emergence of a new species, Homo heidelbergensis, believed to be a common ancestor of modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans."It was lucky [that we survived], but … we know from evolutionary biology that the emergence of a new species can happen in small, isolated populations," Manzi said, per the paper.This population decline occurred about the same time human ancestors split from Neanderthals and Denisovans.Scientists are now planning to study whether Neanderthal and Denisovan genes also show this population drop, which could reveal more about when and why these species separated, The Guardian noted.

The early ancestors of humans were reduced to 1,300 individuals and came close to extinction, scientists say

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Three fossilized footprints belong to an extinct species of ancient humans dating back 300,00 years.</li><li>The prints are among the oldest in Europe and are the oldest ever found in Germany.</li></ul>More than a quarter of a million years ago, ancient humans wandered a shallow lake alongside prehistoric elephants and rhinos in what is now Lower Saxony, a region in northwest Germany.Proof of their existence is from three fossilized footprints they left behind that are among the oldest ever discovered in Europe and the oldest recorded in Germany, a recent <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379123001427?via%3Dihub" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> found.The fossilized prints were covered for millennia, until a mining company began clearing the area to access coal deposits.Archeologists at the University of Tübingen worked with a team of experts in geology, paleontology, and paleobotany to give context to the footprints.They were able to "obtain a reliable picture of the landscape of 300,000 years ago," said team member Flavio Altamura, a fellow at the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen.That picture involves a group of the now-extinct human species called Homo heidelbergensis, or Heidelberg people, as well as the first fossilized Rhio footprints ever discovered in Europe. <div type="image" title="Water color of ancient humans wading in a lake next to elephant and a rhinoceros." height="3470" width="4961" msid="101418760" hostid="261" sizebytes="1871508"></div><h2>The Heidelberg people were similar to us</h2>The Heidelberg people were thriving in what is now Europe long before <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-interbreeding-between-humans-and-neanderthals-affects-our-health-today-2023-6">Neanderthals</a> or even Homo sapiens, said Jordi Serangeli, excavation supervisor at the dig site in Schöningen, Germany.Despite being a different species, the people who left the prints were similar to us, he said."I like to put the emphasis on what we have in common, and not on what divides us from our ancestors," Serangeli said. "They had the same physical and cognitive abilities as we do."That included the ability to craft weapons that were "exceptionally efficient" for both hunting and defending themselves, Serangeli said.<div type="image" title="A single fossilized human print." height="522" width="666" msid="101418761" hostid="261" sizebytes="28016"></div>Two of the three prints discovered at Schöningen were smaller and likely made by children, the researchers said. This suggests that Heidelberg people coexisted in what the team described as mixed-aged groups since it's difficult to know if they were actually a family in the modern-day sense.Regardless, the discovery is significant since most archeological evidence like buildings, weapons, and cooking is performed by adults. Whereas children generally don't leave much evidence behind for scholars to study, Altamura said.<h2>Researchers found the first ancient rhino print in Europe</h2>The human prints were surrounded by many more fossilized footprints from prehistoric animals. Researchers even identified one print from a prehistoric rhino.<div type="image" title="Ancient Rhinoceros fossilized footprint." height="1200" width="1600" msid="101418762" hostid="261" sizebytes="199492"></div>The beast was likely either a specimen of the species <a href="https://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2021/3322-stephanorhinus-kirchbergensis-in-siberia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis</a>, which had previously been identified in Siberia, or Stephanorhinus hemitoechus, a<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0016699515000133" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> wooly rhino</a> that lived throughout Europe.It's the first time a print of either of these rhino species has been identified in Europe.<h2>Elephants at the lake may have weighed up to 13 tons</h2><div type="image" title="Fossilized elephant track." height="2141" width="3406" msid="101418763" hostid="261" sizebytes="359034"></div>Prehistoric elephants weighing up to 13 tons also left prints in the lakebed. The species, <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2020/february/weird-skulls-of-straight-tusked-elephants-reveal-how-many-species.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Palaeoloxodon antiquus</a>, was about twice the size of modern African elephants and may have been the largest land mammal to ever walk the Earth.These elephants had long, straight tusks and were found throughout Europe and western Asia hundreds of thousands of years ago.The company plans to fill the old mine in to make a new lake, but visitors to the area will still be able to learn about their prehistoric ancestors."A beautiful museum has been built very close to the site, where the finds are showcased," Altamura said.

300,000-year-old footprints are some of the oldest in Europe and show how our ancient ancestors co-existed with rhinos and elephants on lake and river shores

<ul class="summary-list"><li>After reevaluating the human fossil record, some experts designated a new type of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/a-handful-of-recent-discoveries-have-shattered-anthropologists-picture-of-where-humans-came-from-and-when/articleshow/73110125.cms">human ancestor</a>.</li><li>This ancestor, Homo bodoensis, lived in Africa about 600,000 years ago and gave rise to modern humans.</li></ul>Humanity's family tree just got a makeover.After reevaluating a cadre of contentious <keyword id="11954588" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="fossils" source="Orion">fossils</keyword> that were found across three continents yet date to the same time period, a group of anthropologists has proposed the designation of a new species of <keyword id="12417509" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="human-ancestor" source="Orion">human ancestor</keyword> - and the elimination of two others.Previously, those fossils - mostly discovered between 1908 and the late 1970s in Europe, Africa, and Asia - were all considered part of the same ancestor group, called Homo heidelbergensis. But the new recommendation, described in a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/EVAN.21929">study</a> published Thursday, suggests it's inaccurate to lump these human ancestors into the same category.Instead, the authors say, many of the fossils from Europe are <keyword id="12417510" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="neanderthals" source="Orion">Neanderthals</keyword>, those from East Asia belong to an unknown and as yet unnamed other group. Those from Africa, they suggest, should be called Homo bodoensis, a new name that comes from a 600,000-year-old skull discovered in Bodo D'ar, Ethiopia 35 years ago. Homo bodoensis, then, would be considered the direct ancestor of modern humans - us - the study authors said.Consequently, they suggested retiring the Homo heidelbergensis name and getting rid of a species called Homo rhodesiensis as well, also categorizing those fossils instead as bodoensis.The move helps improve our understanding of how and when our own Homo sapiens species evolved.<h2>Classifying human ancestor species is tricky</h2><div type="image" title="Homo bodoensis" height="3984" width="3187" msid="87365419" hostid="261"></div>The group of fossils that led researchers to suggest this new human ancestor category date back to the Middle Pleistocene era, the period between 774,000 and 129,000 years ago. Genetic evidence suggests that during that time (and other eras), many human ancestors coexisted and interbred across Africa, Asia, and Europe.Anthropologists recognize a total of <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species?sort_by=field_age_timeline_maximum_value">nearly a dozen early human species</a> existed between 2.4 million years ago and the rise of modern humans 300,000 years ago. Each is differentiated by when they lived, where they thrived, and what their bodies and brains looked like."Species, in our case, is a language thing, not a biological thing," Mirjana Roksandic, an anthropologist at the University of Winnipeg who coauthored the new study, told Insider.In other words, the concept of a "species" in <keyword id="12417506" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="human-evolution" source="Orion">human evolution</keyword> doesn't indicate that a group can't reproduce with other groups, as it suggests with animals. Instead, Roksandic said, the designations simply help anthropologists separate ancestor groups with similar characteristics or geographic ranges.Even so, the process gets tricky. Two years ago, a group of anthropologists at the annual meeting of the American Association of Biological Anthropology debated the definition of the Homo heidelbergensis species. They couldn't agree about its precise identifying characteristics - and therefore which fossils in the record belonged to the group."Everyone had contradictory definitions," Roksandic said.Heidelbergensis' existence was discovered thanks to a jawbone found in 1908 in the German town after which the species was named. Then 60 years later, anthropologists found a skull in France with a mandible that matched. That, in turn, was linked to the Bodo skull from Ethiopia. Some fossils from eastern China were later designated as part of this species as well. But that geographic spread was confusing, as was the fact that heidelbergensis fossils varied wildly in brain size and jaw shape. <div type="image" title="homo heidelbergensis reconstruction" height="380" width="1320" msid="87365421" hostid="261"></div>That variation, according to Roksandic, indicates that heidelbergensis shouldn't be a species at all.It was "basically an early Neanderthal," she said, which is why her group suggests reclassifying all heidelbergensis specimens found in Europe as such, and giving the African ones the new Homo bodoensis name.Bodoensis skulls are marked by big brains similar in size to those of Neanderthals and Denisovans, Roksandic said, since all three species "inherited it from a common ancestor."That ancestor remains undiscovered, but likely descended from Homo erectus, the first early human in Africa to walk upright, about 1.1 million years ago. About 200,000 years later, that ancestor split into two groups. One migrated to Europe and Asia, where it further bifurcated into Neanderthals and Denisovans in those respective locations. The other group stayed in Africa and evolved into bodoensis, the new study suggests, which then gave rise to our species. <h2>A legacy of colonialism </h2><div type="image" title="Homo rhodesiensis skull" height="2547" width="1938" msid="87365424" hostid="261"></div>The second ancestor Roksandic's group wants to remove from the family tree, Homo rhodesiensis, was found in what is now Zimbabwe.At the time of its discovery, the ancestor was named after Rhodesia, an unrecognized territory chartered by Cecil Rhodes and the British South Africa Company in 1965. Anthropologists have since classified fossils found in the region from the Middle Pleistocene as rhodesiensis (including the skull pictured to the left).But the name, Roksandic and her coauthors said, "is associated with sociopolitical baggage that our scientific community is trying to dissociate itself from."Rhodes, a British imperialist and business magnate, forcibly seized land from indigenous people to mine for minerals. The connection between that colonialism and the Homo rhodesiensis classification means the name is rarely used, Roksandic added.So her team suggested renaming all rhodesiensis fossils as bodoensis. But Christopher Stringer, an anthropologist from London's Natural History Museum, doesn't think the heidelbergensis and rhodesiensis names should be discarded. He <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2295406-new-human-species-has-been-named-homo-bodoensis-but-it-may-not-stick/">told New Scientist</a> that the rhodesiensis name refers to the territory, not Rhodes himself. Plus, Stringer added, if the names do have to go, other anthropologists have already suggested good options."Even if you got rid of rhodesiensis, there are other names that would apply rather than creating a new one," Stringer said.For example, in the 1950s, Scottish anthropologist Matthew Drennan suggested the name Homo saldanensis for a skull discovered in South Africa, though that fossil was then classified as heidelbergensis.Roksandic's team says that skull should be designated as bodoensis, too.

After reevaluating humanity's fossil record, a group of experts designated a new species of human ancestor

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Where ancient humans lived was heavily influenced by <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-change-alter-human-life-un-ipcc-report-2022-2">shifting climates</a>, a new study suggests.</li><li>Researchers created a detailed <keyword id="12305897" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="simulation" source="Orion">simulation</keyword> on a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/environment/news/supercomputer-shows-tropical-cyclones-hitting-india-are-going-get-more-destructive-that-is-until-the-flooding-starts/articleshow/79764803.cms">South Korean supercomputer called ALEPH.</a></li></ul>Before human activity changed Earth's climate, shifting climates shaped where and how ancient humans lived. A scientific model published Wednesday in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04600-9.pdf">Nature</a> reveals that human <keyword id="11920873" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="migration" source="Orion">migration</keyword> over the last 2 million years was shaped by changes in Earth's movement. Using a powerful South Korean supercomputer, ALEPH, a team of researchers from South Korea and Europe created a detailed simulation of the planet's climate history stretching back to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-pleistocene-park-mammoths-2016-3">the Pleistocene epoch.</a> The model, which looks at 41,000-year cyclical patterns, incorporates climatic changes in response to small wobbles in Earth's orbit.Astronomical forces, such as a tilt in Earth's axis and slight shifts in the shape of Earth's orbit around the sun, influenced the levels of solar radiation the planet received, causing increases and decreases in temperature and rainfall levels. It took more than <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/949548">six months</a> for the powerful supercomputer to crunch the numbers, producing the longest comprehensive climate model simulation to date. Then researchers mapped locations where more than 3,200 archaeological discoveries of ancient fossils and artifacts from our ancestors and relatives in <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-human-ancestor-species-proposed-homo-bodoensis-2021-10">the genus Homo</a> have been found, in order to identify the habitats in which each species was able to thrive."Even though different groups of archaic humans preferred different climatic environments, their habitats all responded to climate shifts caused by astronomical changes in Earth's axis wobble, tilt, and orbital eccentricity with timescales ranging from 21,000 to 400,000 years," Axel Timmermann, a climate physicist at Pusan National University in South Korea, who led the study, said in a <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/949548">statement</a>. The research team noted trends emerging from the data. For instance, they found that around 700,000 years ago, one hominin species — Homo heidelbergensis, believed to be the most recent common ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals — began expanding from their traditional range because our planet's elliptical orbit created wetter, more habitable climate conditions, making it easier to migrate. Simulations also indicate that modern-day human species, Homo sapiens, might have emerged as a result of period of drought in southern Africa and Eurasia, which forced our early ancestors to adjust to hot, dry regions around 300,000 years ago. <div type="image" title="Preferred habitats of Homo sapiens (purple shading, left), Homo heidelbergensis (red shading, middle), Homo neanderthalensis (blue shading, right) calculated from the new simulation." height="525" width="700" msid="90922257" hostid="261"></div>Still, the role of climate in human evolution remains a hotly debated idea. Gaps in the archaeological data mean it's hard to directly link an early human species' emergence to a climate event, Tyler Faith, a palaeobiologist at the University of Utah, who was not involved in the study, told <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01050-1#ref-CR1">Nature</a>. "If solving the mystery of <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword> and human evolution could be dealt with in one paper, it would have been done 40 years ago."Other studies have looked at the link between climate change and human evolution. An influential theory by paleoanthropologist Rick Potts, who was not involved in the new climate model, suggests climate fluctuations starting around 400,000 years ago in East Africa resulted in Homo sapiens being more adaptable to unpredictable shifting environments, according to <a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/climate-change-human-evolution-habitat-migration">Science News</a>.Moreover, there are limits to the hypothetical computer models used in the study, according to Michael Petraglia from the Max Planck Institute. Petraglia wasn't involved with the study, but is the author of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00975-x">commentary on the findings</a>: "The habitat suitability models are therefore a welcomed scientific tool, but they are only models," he said, adding, "We have a lot of work to do on the ground, recovering not only fossils and archaeology, but reconstructing the environments in which hominins found themselves."For Timmerman and his team, the new, controversial results add to our understanding of early human movement and evolution. "The global collection of skulls and tools is not randomly distributed in time," Timmermann told <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01050-1">Nature</a>, adding, "It follows a pattern."

As Earth's climate got wetter, ancient humans were able to migrate more widely, a new scientific model suggests

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists uncovered a new species of human ancestor named the Nesher Ramla homo in a sinkhole. </li><li>This ancestor lived between 140,000 and 120,000 years ago in <keyword id="6355882" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="israel">Israel</keyword> and Arabia alongside humans. </li><li>New research suggests Nesher Ramla homo <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/a-handful-of-recent-discoveries-have-shattered-anthropologists-picture-of-where-humans-came-from-and-when/articleshow/73110125.cms">interbred with humans</a>, as well as our Neanderthal cousins.</li></ul>The eastern Mediterranean coast was a crowded place 120,000 years ago.By that time, Homo sapiens - anatomically modern humans - had migrated out of Africa and settled in modern-day Israel and Arabia. Meanwhile, Neanderthals - our genetic cousins - had started to thrive in Eurasia. Now, new research reveals that a third human ancestor was hunting and gathering in the same landscape. <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.abh3169">Two</a> <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.abh3020">studies</a> published Thursday in the journal <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> describe a previously unknown hominin called the Nesher Ramla homo. The group not only shared tools and technology with their neighbors, they also interbred."They lived together and interacted with another," Rachel Sarig, an anthropologist from Tel Aviv University and co-author of the new studies, told Insider.<div type="image" title="Nesher Ramla Homo" height="2198" width="3991" msid="83825645" hostid="261"></div>Sarig and her colleagues uncovered a partial jaw bone, which they pieced together from 17 fragments like a puzzle, deep in a sinkhole at an Israeli site called Nesher Ramla - hence the ancestor's name. There were also chunks of skull and a tooth belonging to the same individual.Notably, the human ancestor had no chin - a feature distinct to Homo sapiens - and a flatter, squatter head. Those features suggest Nesher Ramla was a more ancient species than the region's other occupants."It was some kind of pre-Neanderthal," Sarig said.The team had expected the bones to belong to a modern human."Homo sapiens were the dominant population in the Levant" between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, Sarig said. "We were very surprised when we started looking at the <keyword id="6377866" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="fossils">fossils</keyword>, and it was clear right away that Nesher Ramla was not the same."<h2>A sinkhole in the Judean Hills</h2><div type="image" title="Nesher Ramla Homo" height="843" width="1264" msid="83825646" hostid="261"></div>The discovery was a decade in the making. In 2011, workers were expanding a limestone quarry in the Judean Hills - between Israel's Mediterranean coast and Jerusalem - when they found a huge sinkhole.In sediment about 25 feet down, Sarig's team uncovered animal teeth and bones, flint stone tools, and the Nesher Ramla bones. They suspect the sinkhole was an ancient watering hole, where animals came to drink and our human ancestors gathered to butcher game. The researchers calculated that the animal teeth and flint were between 120,000 and 140,000 years old, suggesting Nesher Ramla homo lived then, too. But Hila May, a co-author of the new studies, told Insider that it's possible this prehistoric human started occupying the area up to half a million years ago.<div type="image" title="Nesher Ramla Homo" height="1746" width="2323" msid="83825647" hostid="261"></div>Typically, hominins that lived during the Middle Pleistocene era in Israel, as Nesher Ramla homo did, are classified as part of the species Homo heidelbergensis. These ancestors are characterized by their <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/node/738">use of fire to make tools and cook</a>. But the authors of the study chose not to put this new human in that species, since its anatomical features do not align closely.Still, May said this ancestor had a very similar way of life to Neanderthals and Homo sapiens."They were hunter-gatherers living in small groups, hunting animals like rhinos, horses, and deer," she said, adding that Nesher Ramla were "not very different in their abilities from other groups."<h2>Interbreeding among human ancestors</h2><div type="image" title="Neanderthal" height="1993" width="2658" msid="83825648" hostid="261"></div>The new study suggests that once Neanderthals migrated to Europe about 100,000 years ago, the Nesher Ramla group played a key role in shaping what they looked like and how they lived.The new discovery might also solve a genetic mystery. Previous research found that some Neanderthals from the Middle Pleistocene era have genes that come from Homo sapiens. But these modern humans didn't arrive in Europe until about 45,000 years ago - long after the Neanderthals.<div type="image" title="nesher ramla" height="2657" width="3542" msid="83825649" hostid="261"></div>So if Nesher Ramla interbred with both Neanderthals and modern humans in the Levant before Neanderthals expanded west, that could explain the migration of the genes. "We needed some explanation how Homo genes got to Europe before Homo got there," May said.And the three hominins did more than just interbreed - evidence from the sinkhole also suggests they shared tool-making technologies, using the same types of flint tools made in the same way.

A human ancestor previously unknown to science lived alongside ancient humans and Neanderthals - and they all interbred

Shannon McPherron, MPI EVA LeipzigAnthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin points to one of the finds, a crushed human skull whose eye orbits are visible just beyond his fingertip.Precisely when and where did our species emerge? Anthropologists have struggled with that question for decades, and until now, scattered clues have suggested the answer lies somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, around 200,000 years ago.But new evidence outlined in <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature22336">two</a> <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature22335">papers</a> published in the journal Nature challenges that hypothesis. Instead, the authors describe recently discovered remains that suggest the first Homo sapiens showed up more than 100,000 years earlier than we thought, in a place many experts didn't suspect.The fossils could represent the earliest known examples of Homo sapiens ever found (if confirmed by further research), and serve as evidence that members of our species lived beyond sub-Saharan Africa.<h2>Skulls in the dust</h2>In 1961, a crew of miners was plowing into a dense wall of limestone in a hilly region west of Marrakesh when they struck a soft patch. The hardened beige surface gave way to a mound of cinnamon-colored dirt. Peeking out of the earth was a sliver of human skull.A bit more digging revealed a nearly-complete skull, which the miners turned over to their field doctor. As word about the discovery spread, researchers flocked to the area. They uncovered more remains, including several pieces of jaw bone and a fragment of an arm. At the time, scientists pegged the fossils as roughly 40,000 years old, a few thousand years before our extinct European relatives, the Neanderthals, were thought to have vanished.But they hadn't dug deep enough.Shannon McPherron, MPI EVA LeipzigThe Jebel Irhoud site in Morocco.Roughly 40 years later, anthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin and his team from the Max Planck Institute excavated the half-dozen layers of soil beneath the land where the skull and arm bones had been discovered. There, the team found remains that they say belong to at least five individuals. Using a dating technique that measures how much radiation has built up in a material since it was heated, Hublin and his team say the ancient bones came from people who lived roughly 300,000-350,000 years ago. "These dates were a big wow," Hublin said on a recent call with reporters.Still, the biggest discovery didn't come until the team looked more closely at the skulls.<h2>A striking resemblance </h2>When Hublin peered into the cavernous eye sockets of one of the skulls, he was astonished.Instead of the robust features he was accustomed to seeing on the faces of an ancient human ancestor like Homo erectus or Homo heidelbergensis, this face bore a striking resemblance to his own. Where an erectus skull had a single, protruding brow ridge, these individuals had smaller, separated ones. Rather than a large face and a flattened skull, these people had small faces and rounder skulls."The face of these people is really a face that falls right in the middle of the modern variation," said Hublin. "They had a skull that is more elongated than most of us, but I'm not sure these people would stand out from a crowd today."Their braincase (shown below in blue) also seemed to fall somewhere between what one might expect in an ancient human ancestor and a modern human, albeit slightly more similar to those of our archaic ancestors.Philipp Gunz, MPI EVA LeipzigThis unique combination of advanced and archaic features suggests something profound, Hublin said - he's convinced the Moroccan specimens "represent the very root of our species."In other words, all of the Homo sapiens ever found - including those uncovered far beyond Africa - may trace their ancestral linkages to the land that is today's Morocco. That suggestion contradicts the prevailing anthropological logic that our species evolved somewhere deep in sub-Saharan Africa, in what some researchers have referred to as a "Garden of Eden," then gradually moved out to other parts of the world. Instead, Hublin and his team argue that Homo sapiens could have been living in terrain across Africa."There is no Garden of Eden in Africa, or if there is, it is all of Africa," Hublin said.According to <a href="http://www.southampton.ac.uk/archaeology/about/staff/srz.page">Sonia Zakrzewski</a>, an associate professor of archaeology at the University of Southampton, Hublin's discovery could encourage other archaeologists to change the way they think about human origins. "It really sets the world alight in terms of the possibilities for understanding the evolution of Homo sapiens," she said. "It certainly means that we need to rethink our models." <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/discovery-worlds-oldest-fossil-sparks-debate-among-scientists-2017-3">A fascinating new discovery is stirring up a huge scientific debate over the origin of life on Earth and beyond</a></h3> Please enable Javascript to watch this video

300,000-year-old skulls that look shockingly like us could rewrite the human origin story

<div class="image-container full"><div class="image">Javier Trueba, MADRID SCIENTIFIC FILMSThe Sima de los Huesos hominins lived approximately 400,000 years ago during the Middle Pleistocene.</div></div>Four-hundred-thousand-year-old human remains found deep in <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/resources/whats-hot/mystery-pit-bones-atapuerca-spain" target="_blank">the Pit of Bones</a> - a cave 43 feet under the ground in northern Spain - could hold the secrets of our origin. For now, however, the first analysis of ancient human genetic material has created more questions than answers.
"Right now, we've basically generated a big question mark," study researcher Matthias Meyer, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/science/at-400000-years-oldest-human-dna-yet-found-raises-new-mysteries.html?ref=science" target="_blank">told The New York Times</a>.
<div class="image-container float_left"><div class="image">Javier Trueba, MADRID SCIENTIFIC FILMSSkeleton of a Homo heidelbergensis from Sima de los Huesos, a unique cave site in Northern Spain.</div></div>
The Pit of Bones was discovered in the 1970s and scientists have been studying it and the bones it contains ever since. So far they've found the bones of 28 <keyword id="1755509" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ancient-Humans">ancient humans</keyword>, tentatively classified as Homo heidelbergensis, dating back hundreds of thousands of years.
The 400,000-year-old bones were originally thought to belong to ancient relatives of <keyword id="528865" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Neanderthals">Neanderthals</keyword>, a species of ancient hominin on a different branch of the evolutionary tree than our ancestors, based on their size and shape.
But the new genetic information <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12788.html" target="_blank">published Dec. 4 in the journal Nature</a> has thrown that assumption into question.
The researchers used a completely new technique to isolate the DNA from a thigh bone, which they say wouldn't even have been possible a year ago.
Previously, the oldest human DNA ever sequenced was a paltry 100,000 years old.
The genetic material they sequenced is not the DNA we traditionally think of but the specialized DNA that runs our cell's energy-making machine (the mitochondria) and is passed down only from the mother.
This mitochondrial DNA indicated that these ancient humans, though they looked like Neanderthals, were more genetically related (or, at least their mitochondria were) to another ancient human species, the Denisovians.
The Denisovians are a completely different, also dead, branch of the human evolutionary tree. They are known to have lived about 80,000 years ago in East Asia. The bones from those Denisovians don't look like Neanderthals or like the 400,000-year-old bones that researchers have found in the pit.
<div class="image-container full"><div class="image">Javier Trueba, MADRID SCIENTIFIC FILMSThe thigh bone of a 400,000-year-old hominin from Sima de los Huesos, Spain, was excavated by Arsuaga and his team. </div></div>Finding their DNA thousands of miles and hundreds of thousands of years away from where we thought Denisovians evolved throws everything we know about ancient humans and how they spread out around the globe and evolved into distinct species into question.
"It's extremely hard to make sense of," <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/science/at-400000-years-oldest-human-dna-yet-found-raises-new-mysteries.html?ref=science" target="_blank">Meyer told The NYT</a>. "We still are a bit lost here."
The DNA isolated from these ancient bones suggests that there could have been many more species of ancient humans than we thought.
Another possibility is that these mysterious people found in the Pit of Bones were the evolutionary ancestors of both the Neanderthals and Denisovians. The mitochondrial DNA might have disappeared from the Neanderthals at some point but remained with the Denisovians, the researchers said.
This builds upon other findings, presented Nov. 18 at a meeting on ancient DNA at the Royal Society and reported by <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/mystery-humans-spiced-up-ancients-sex-lives-1.14196" target="_blank">Nature News</a>, that indicated that ancient humans interbred with not just Neanderthals and Denisovians, but <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ancient-humans-had-sex-with-mystery-species-2013-12" target="_blank">also another mystery relative</a>. The researchers on that study suggest that it could have been the ancient human species Homo erectus, which came along a few million years ago, then disappeared from the fossil record right before modern humans.
Ben Shapiro, an ancient DNA researcher from the University of California, Santa Cruz, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/05/science/at-400000-years-oldest-human-dna-yet-found-raises-new-mysteries.html?ref=science" target="_blank">suggested to The New York Times</a> that Homo erectus could be the species in the Pit of Bones as well.
The only way to find answers is to sequence more of the ancient DNA in the pit and from other ancient human fossils.

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