Is there a link between climate change and human evolution?

[W]hile all the talk nowadays focuses on how to change the course of the climate’s evolution, a study out [October 11] in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests shifts in ancient weather patterns may have affected our own species’ evolution.

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[Researchers] took core samples from Lake Magadi in southwest Kenya, sampling layers so deep they go back over a million years. By analyzing their changes in geochemistry, mineralogy, pollen counts and more, the team can recreate the region’s climate, and its changes.

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So, what did they find? Starting about 575 thousand years ago, the area started become much drier, a process called aridification.

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At the same time, the archaeological evidence shows our hominin ancestors were going through some changes too — what the authors call “a major transition in stone technologies.”

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“The [earliest] dry phase and environmental variability would likely have had a significant impact on contemporary hominin populations regionally,” the authors write. Such a changing climate “can lead to an uneven distribution of resources that could drive hominins to travel more widely and to interact increasingly with other groups.”

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With this finding, not only do we have a better picture of the kind of environment our hominin ancestors enjoyed, we also have more evidence of the kind of havoc a changing climate can wreak. You know, just in case we face anything similar in the future.

Read full, original post: Did Ancient Climate Change Affect Human Evolution?