Humans first appeared in Africa around 300,000 years ago, but scientists didn’t know what the environment was like back then. The popular belief was that humans evolved in grasslands and savannahs, while rainforests were seen as difficult places for early humans to live. This view has changed recently with new evidence showing that humans could live and adapt to rainforests much earlier than previously thought.
In places like Sumatra (Indonesia), humans lived in rainforests over 70,000 years ago. In Borneo, people used plants from the rainforest 45,000 years ago. In Sri Lanka, humans depended on rainforest resources over 36,000 years ago. These discoveries suggest that humans may have lived in rainforests even before they left Africa.
The oldest evidence of humans living in African rainforests was previously thought to be around 18,000 years ago. But a new study has pushed this back to 150,000 years ago. Researchers studied an ancient site called Bété I in Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), where human tools were found buried in layers of sediment. These tools date back 150,000 years, and the environment at that time was a dense rainforest with plants that thrive in humid conditions.
The researchers used different methods to study the site, including special techniques to date the sediment and tools. They found that the area was rich in forest plants like oil palms and had very little grass, showing it was a thick, wooded area, not just a small patch of forest.
This discovery is important because it shows that humans were able to live in a variety of environments from early on in our history. It also highlights the importance of looking at different regions of Africa to get a clearer picture of how early humans lived.
The findings from other sites in West Africa, such as those in Senegal, show that early humans in this region had different cultural behaviors. This suggests that West Africa may have its own unique story about human evolution.
In the future, new discoveries in West Africa could change what we know about human history. But what’s clear already is that early humans lived in a wide variety of environments in Africa, even before they left the continent.
