New Research: Severe Frost Caused the Extinction of 'Homo Erectus' in Europe

Long before our species, modern humans or 'Homo sapiens', left Africa, early human species had migrated to other parts of the world. However, this dispersion was sometimes accompanied by severe hardships. According to a report by Reuters, researchers presented evidence on Thursday of a massive glaciation event in the North Atlantic that occurred around 1.1 million years ago and lasted nearly 4,000 years, which appears to have wiped out the entire population of ancient humans that had settled in Europe. Based on fossils found in Spain, it is believed that this species was 'Homo erectus', or 'upright man', which is generally considered the first member of the human lineage that expanded beyond Africa. This species was the first of the hominins to have body proportions similar to modern humans and innovated in the creation of stone tools. A reconstructed model of what an upright man looked like is on display in an exhibition in Germany. It seems that the cooling of the Earth during this time—comparable in intensity to recent ice ages—deprived Europe of food resources for humans who were 'hunter-gatherers'. According to researchers, upright man likely could not withstand the cold without body fat insulation, and acquiring suitable clothing, shelter, and materials for making fire would have been particularly challenging. The skull of an upright man is archived. It is still unclear how many upright humans perished in this regional extinction event. Chris Stringer, an anthropologist from the Natural History Museum in London and one of the authors of this research, stated, 'We do not have a strong theory of population numbers, but it was certainly low by modern standards—probably at most tens of thousands across Europe.' Axel Timmermann, a climate physicist from Pusan National University in South Korea and another author of the study, said, 'This study provides insights into the early vulnerability of human species to environmental changes and how they adapted to increasing cold and glacial stress.' The results of this study were published on Thursday, August 10, in the scientific journal 'Science'.