The Ancient Humans lived in China 2.1 million years ago



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About 100,000 years ago – when genetic evidence suggests that homo sapiens definitely left Africa – these three ancient human forms inhabited much of the same territory , interacting and mating sometimes. Today, only homo sapiens survives, although some modern humans retain Neanderthal or Denisovan DNA.

But this new discovery suggests that some early humans have tidied up much of the Earth well before this late date. "It's much earlier than Neanderthal man, much earlier," said Petraglia.

The discovery suggests that ancient humans emigrated from Africa many times, although these migrations have not always been successful. "Some populations have traveled as far as East Asia, but we have to imagine that there were small populations of hunting and gathering. And although they have mated across East Asia, that does not mean that they have survived for a long period of time. Some populations may be isolated, and some may be extinct. "

These migrations may even have preceded the worst of the modern ice ages.While the Earth was undergoing great temperature variations about 2 million years ago, the powerful glaciations of the last million years could not yet be seen from the North Pole.

The Loess Plateau probably alternated between an arid steppe and a wet meadow every 40,000 years, and the tools also appear to be becoming scarce in the site during these cold dry intervals. suggests that ancient humans could not adapt so much to life in the tropics.And it should be noted that the new study does not claim that hominids have continuously inhabited Asia during the last two million years

Kappelman, a professor at the University of Texas, has taken a more robust view of this ancient … human community.He noted that different types the stralopithecus – a hominin who briefly shared Africa with homo habilis for 500,000 years lived for millions of years without ever seeming to leave the world. ;Africa. 2.1 million years ago, as the first fossils of our genus homo appear, scientists suddenly discover ancestral human presence in much of the Old World.

: Boom! You get this scatter, all along what was then the known Earth. The rooms were filled there very early, "he said. "That's the kind of thing where, if we saw this for other species, it would be remarkable."

He could only remember another mammal who settled in a new territory and dispersed immediately: ancient horses. "They were born in North America, then migrated to the Old World about 11 million years ago, and then, boom, they're like gangbusters, they're everywhere," he said. -he says.

The ancient humans may have gone through a similar expansion, even before they acquired all the traits that define a modern homo sapiens . We have just less evidence of this explosion: Since ancient humans were carnivores, they would never have been as abundant as horses, which are lower in the food chain.

"The world is invaded by people today," he said. "There was a time when she was not there." The challenge is to reconstruct how humans have gone from rare to ubiquitous. "What was it about their behavior? Because we do not see Australopithecus going out even though they are at the same time." We do not find any other hominids in Eurasia until the rise of homo. "

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Robinson Meyer is editor at The Atlantic where he covers climate change and technology.
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