The role of climate change in human evolution and human ancestors sex

According to experts from the London Museum of Natural History, Homo erectus, which came from Africa to what is now Europe, could not survive the ice age from a million years ago. The average air temperature then dropped by 4.5°C. Newcomers from Africa did not know how to light a fire in such a cold place, prepare warm clothes and eat in a cold climate. Human ancestors probably returned to Europe around 100,000 years after “evolutionary and behavioural changes” that allowed them to survive in cold conditions.

Research by scientists from Pusan National University in South Korea indicates that due to climate change over the last 400,000 years, sex between Neanderthals and Denisovans was quite common. The shift of the Earth’s orbit changed the environment and vegetation distribution, resulting in overlapping migration patterns of these two human subspecies. Amorous meetings took place, among others, in Central Eurasia and the Caucasus.

Almost 12,000 years ago, most of the large land mammals outside of Africa became extinct. Based on a study of animal remains trapped in tar pits in La Brea, present-day Los Angeles, the researchers say both a warming dry climate and human hunting and burning contributed to the decline of the region’s megafauna. This triggered the great fires that accelerated the end-Pleistocene extinction and changed the ecosystem forever. The smilodons, dire wolves and ground sloths died out then.