Nature reports:

A colossal simulation of the past two million years of Earth’s climate provides evidence that temperature and other planetary conditions influenced early human migration — and possibly contributed to the emergence of the modern-day human species around 300,000 years ago.

The finding is one of many to come out of the largest model so far to investigate how changes in Earth’s movement have influenced climate and human evolution, published in Nature today. “This is another brick in the wall to support the role of climate in shaping human ancestry,” says Peter de Menocal, director of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Massachusetts.

The idea that climate might have a significant role in human evolution has been around since at least the 1920s, when scientists started debating whether drier conditions had led early human ancestors to begin walking on two feet, to adapt to life on the savannah. But so far, researchers have struggled to provide strong evidence that climate played a part in shaping humanity. [Continue reading…]