- A new study published in Nature provides the earliest evidence that our human ancestors lived in the tropical rainforests of Africa
- The study involving University of Sheffield researchers dates humans living in rainforests back to 150,000 years ago, 80,000 years earlier than found in other rainforests sites around the world
- Luminescence and Electron Spin Resonance dating techniques were used to date sediments containing Middle Stone Age tools found at an archeological site in Côte d'Ivoire, Africa, to a time when tropical rainforests existed across the region
- The study argues that tropical rainforests were not a barrier to the spread of modern humans and supports the theory that human evolution happened across a variety of regions and habitats.
The earliest evidence of humans living in tropical rainforests in Africa, around 150,000 years ago, has been published in a new study in Nature.
Humans were thought to have not lived in rainforests until relatively recently due to them being thought of as natural barriers to human habitation.
However the new study - published by an international team led by the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, with contributions from the University of Sheffield - found that humans were living in rainforests within the present-day Côte d'Ivoire around 150,000 years ago.
The study puts the evidence for humans living in rainforests anywhere in the world, back by 80,000 years, and argues that human evolution happened across a variety of regions and habitats.
The team re-excavated an archaeological site from the 1980s currently found within rainforest, in which stone tools had previously been found deep within sediments but could not be dated. They then applied new scientific methods to the site which were not available during the original study.
