How did modern humans get into Europe?

Ana Mateos and Jesús Rodríguez, scientists from the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH), are part of an international team that publishes in the journal PALAEO3 a work that demonstrates that the first humans Homo sapiens they could not reach Europe through the Straits of Gibraltar and Sicily, but they may have reached Eurasia by crossing the Bab-al-Mandab Strait.

There is a long scientific debate about the routes followed by the first modern humans who left the African continent. Most specialists think that the arrival in Europe took place by a land route through the Levantine corridor. However, the idea of ​​a possible entry through the Straits of Gibraltar and Sicily is still present in the debate. Another possible way of entering Eurasia would be through the Red Sea, crossing the Bab-al-Mandab Strait.

The authors of the article have used their computational model HomininWaterCrossingABM which simulates the dispersal of humans across the sea, to analyze the probability of crossing a strait using different strategies. Reconstructions of paleogeography, sea level, ocean currents, and water temperature are included in the model.

The results show that humans were not able to cross the Mediterranean straits by drifting or actively swimming; the raft would have been the only possible means of crossing them for modern humans, but there is no evidence that such technology was within their reach. Instead, the simulations suggest that humans could have crossed the Bab-al Mandab Strait by swimming or even drifting with the current.

Different climate scenarios for early humans

The effect of the climatic differences between the present and the moment in which the departure from Africa took place, in the Upper Pleistocene, has also been included in the study. ‘We run our simulations under two different climate scenarios, one representing a warmer period than the current one and the other a glacial period. These are two extremes that allow us to evaluate the effect of the weather on the chances of success when crossing the straits»explains Jesus Rodriguez.

The simulation also takes into account the effect of the main physiological risks: dehydration, hypothermia and exhaustion, faced by a human trying to cross a strait. “We have seen that in the Mediterranean the greatest risk factors are dehydration and, above all, hypothermia. However, in the Red Sea, where the water is warmer, these factors have little influence and death would occur from exhaustion.”points out Ana Mateos.

In this article, led by Ericson Hölzchen, in addition to the CENIEH, scientists from the Goethe University of Frankfurt, the Trier Lab for Social Simulation (TRILABS), the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), the Institute of Geography – University of Cologne and the Institut Teknologi Bandung of Indonesia.

Font: CENIEH, DICYT,

Reference article: https://www.dicyt.com/news/modern-humans-did-not-enter-in-europe-crossing-the-sea