In this episode, I introduce the habitats of hominins and the period they overlapped and lived together.
Australopithecus was the hominin who became the distant ancestor of human beings
by walking out of apes that lived in the jungles of Africa 5 million years ago.
2.7 million years later,
About 2.3 million years ago,
Homo habilis, known to be related to the direct ancestor of humans, appeared in Africa.
Homo erectus evolved from them and lived widely in Europe and Asia until 80,000 years ago.
Homo heidelbergensises are hominins that evolved in a different direction from Homo erectus.
These are hominins related to the direct ancestors of modern humans.
They also first lived in Africa.
However, some groups of Homo heidelbergensis migrate to Europe.
Homo heidelbergensis who migrated to Europe evolved into Neanderthals.
Heidelbergs remaining in Africa evolved into Homo sapiens.
Only Homo sapiens survives and is the master of our planet,
but until 30,000 years ago, we humans lived together with other hominins on this earth.
Some of the Homo sapiens that lived in central Africa began migrating between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago.
Populations that migrated to South Africa form the mitochondrial DNA haplogroup L0.
The group remaining in Central Africa belongs to the mitochondrial DNA haplogroup L1.
he group that migrated to West Africa forms a haplogroup L2 and becomes L3 in East Africa.
A part of Homo sapiens belonging to L3 that lived in East Africa becomes the protagonist of 'Out of Africa'.
They prosper and become the modern humans occupying this planet today.
The path through which groups belonging to the mitochondrial DNA haplogroup L3 migrated from Africa to the world was introduced
in detail in the episode linked in the upper right.
Watching this video together will help you understand their migration path.
But why did they have to leave Africa?
A paper published in the journal Nature in April 2022 found that archaic human habitats and species successions
had a significant climate impact.
In this paper,
they concluded by simulating climate change in the habitat of a hominin
from 2 million years ago to 30,000 years ago with a supercomputer.
In this episode,
the dataset cited in this paper is mapped to show the habitats in which they lived visually.
Through this video,
you will be able to understand the habitats they lived in by era and the period during which other hominins overlapped.
Subsequent episodes will address the climate impacts reported in this paper on archaic human habitats.