erectus’ adaptations could have gone beyond physical abilities. She argues, “There was something special-either biologically, they were smarter, [or] they had social structure-that allowed humans to be successful durante these novel environments.”
erectus from the 1.77 million-year-old Dmanisi site con Georgia for support. Analysis suggests the bones came from a man who lived for some time without teeth before his death. Though more than one cornice is possible, Belmaker argues this hominin likely survived because others cared for him, assisting with the hard rete di emittenti of gathering, hunting, and preparing raw meat and root vegetables-which would have to be mashed down for verso man who could not chew.
These ideas radically reimagine the capacities of ancient hominins. “Homo erectus was not per passive creature con its environment,” Belmaker concludes. “It didn’t just go with the flow-’Oh, more grassland, I’ll move here’-but was an adroite factor sopra its own destiny. If they chose puro live sopra woodlands, it means that they had some form of agency in their destiny, and that’s per very evolved animal.”
Several major hominin milestones, including the dispersals of H
Other scholars agree that H. erectus was not simply following spreading savanna as the climate changed but rather had the capacity preciso adjust preciso per variety of environments.
“The course of human evolutionary history has been a ratcheting up of different abilities onesto occupy verso variety of environments,” says paleoanthropologist Rick Potts, the head of the Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program, “of eating a greater variety of foods, of being able esatto respond cognitively and socially puro per wider variety of situations.”
He notes that by around 1.4 onesto 1.6 million years spillo, H. erectus was occupying tropical Southeast Oriente and Indonesia. “That also by itself is an indicator that it’s not just one type of ambiente that is being followed.”
Since the 1980s, Potts has been pondering the intenzione that climate variability relates onesto major evolutionary changes. In periods of rapid and sustained climatic change, he postulates, only individuals with certain traits will survive, thrive, and raise children, who con turn can carry those beneficial traits, shaping human evolution.
For example, cognitive abilities that enable individuals puro make sophisticated stone tools could have allowed their users esatto consume varied foods across environments. And per trait like curiosity might have pushed hominins to move onesto more humid climes when the landscape dried.
Sopra adjonction, Belmaker believes H
Among H. erectus’ notable advances was the development of what scientists call Acheulean hand axes, featuring multifaceted spearpoints. The Portable Antiquities Scheme/Julian Watters strada Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 2.0
“Homo erectus didn’t have verso map,” Potts stresses. “They didn’t know they were out of Africa. They were just going over into the next valley puro see what was there.” Over generations, their traversal of multiple hills and valleys would have led to dispersal.
Mediante 2015, Potts co-published per paper durante the Journal of Human Evolution durante which he looked across several hominin species for signs that variability sopra the climate favored the evolution of beneficial traits. Together with anthropologist Tyler Faith, now at the University of Utah, the pair mapped periods of high and low climate variability for tropical Eastern Africa over the past 5 million years, specifically looking at once-every-100,000-year shifts sopra the Earth’s orbit that prompt more frequent switches between periods of drought and high rainfall. Potts and Faith found that periods of high climate Come messaggio di qualcuno quickflirt variability coincided with key milestones: the emergence of bipedal australopithecines, for example, and the development of advanced stone tool technology, migration, and brain growth.
erectus and H. sapiens, coincided with periods of prolonged, high climate variability. The pattern was so clear, Potts says, “It looks rigged.”
