Early human species went extinct due to climate change, new study says

NIRMAL YESODA

Early humans might have gone extinct due to the negative effects of climate change, according to a new study conducted by a team of researchers led by Professor Pasquale Raia of the Universita di Napoli Federico II in Naples, Italy. According to the researchers, there were six or more different species in the genus Homo, and out of them, only Homo sapiens survived.

To substantiate their findings, researchers put forward the example of hominins, a human species that appeared in Africa around three million years ago. However, all the members of this species went extinct 10,000 years ago.

The research team revealed that this species could have gone extinct due to the effects of climate change. The study result also act as a warning to modern humans who are now facing the negative effects of climate change and global warming.

Researchers who carried out this study made this conclusion after conducting climate simulations from the past five million years and examined data from 2,750 archaeological records.

“It is worrying to discover that our ancestors were no less impressive in terms of their mental capacity than any other species in the world Earth could not withstand climate change. And we have found that it is precisely when our own species is sawing the branch we are sitting on that we are causing climate change. Personally, I take this as a thundering warning. Climate change has made homo vulnerable and unhappy in the past, and this may happen again right now,” said Pasquale.

Apart from hominins, the other human species that were wiped out from the surface of earth were H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, and H. neanderthalensis. Even though Neanderthals tried a lot to survive climate change, the competition they faced from Homo sapiens resulted in their extinction.