A new study published in the journal Science finds that around 1.12 million years ago a massive cooling event in the North Atlantic and corresponding shifts in climate, vegetation and food resources disrupted early human occupation of Europe. According to our ocean sediment core pollen analysis, the North Atlantic cooling event switched western European vegetation to an inhospitable semi-desert landscape.," adds Dr. Vasiliki Margari from UCL, lead author of the study. By adding glacial freshwater to the North Atlantic, Dr. Kyung-Sook Yun, and Ms. Hyuna Kim from the ICCP were able to reproduce key features of the terminal stadial event, such as the cooling and drying over southern Europe. We found that over many areas of southern Europe, early human species such as Homo erectus would have not been able to survive" describes Prof. Axel Timmermann, Director of the ICCP at Pusan National University and co-corresponding author of the study. "Our study on past climates documents the sensitivity of Southern European vegetation and human food resources to North Atlantic temperature changes.

Source: The North Africa Journal August 11, 2023 04:10 UTC