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All humans originate from a small population in Africa. Around 50,000 years ago, that population was able to successfully migrate to drastically different environments and climates outside of Africa. A new study led by Emily Yuko Hallett, assistant professor in Loyola University Chicago’s Department of Anthropology, sought to explain how.
What did this new study uncover?
The early humans’ ability to migrate wasn’t due to a major advancement in technology or communication; it was due to their ability to adapt, honed by earlier migration to different habitat types throughout Africa, the study found.
“We found that humans have been successfully living in challenging habitats for at least 70,000 years, and that our ecological flexibility is part of what enabled our species to disperse across the globe and thrive in each habitat we encountered,” Hallett said.
“This flexibility is not just a survival mechanism, it’s a defining trait of our species,” said Jacopo Niccolò Cerasoni, a co-author on the study and postdoctoral researcher in Loyola University Chicago’s Department of Biology. “This study provides the clearest evidence yet that humans were capable of thriving in markedly different ecological zones well before their expansion beyond Africa.”
How did researchers come to this conclusion?
Researchers assembled a continent-wide database of archaeological sites in Africa, then analyzed the timing and migration patterns of early humans.
“We assembled a dataset of archaeological sites and environmental information covering the last 120 thousand years in Africa,” Hallett said. “We used methods developed in ecology to understand changes in human environmental niches, the habitats humans can use and thrive in, during this time.”
How will these findings shape future studies?
Future research directions might include a targeted look at how and why humans began using challenging habitats 70,000 years ago throughout Africa.
“Ecological flexibility is likely tied to expanded, highly effective and adaptable toolkits, and cumulative culture, for the humans dispersing into new geographic ranges for the first time,” Hallett said. “As archaeologists, we can now zoom in on that time period 70,000 years ago to see how humans moved into challenging desert and forest environments, and identify any associated innovative behaviors.”
Read more stories from the College of Arts and Sciences.
(Header image: Forested landscape near an archaeological site in northwestern Bénin. The human niche had expanded into forested regions of West Africa prior to the successful dispersal of our species out of Africa. Image by Jacopo Niccolò Cerasoni)
Contact the researchers:
Emily Yuko Hallett
Assistant Professor
Jacopo Niccolò Cerasoni
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
