A new study suggests that the first humans in Europe (a population of the archaic human species, Homo erectus) perished by “supercooling” about 1.1 million years ago. The previously unknown temperature drop coincides with what is known about human habitation on the continent. Fossils and stone tools show Homo erectus arrived in Europe from Asia between 1.8 million and 1.4 million years ago, previous studies have found, but they seem to have died out in Europe about 1.1 million years ago.

The next evidence of archaic humans in Europe dates back to about 900,000 years ago, perhaps after a later and more robust species, Homo antecessor, arrived there from Africa or Asia.

“There’s an obvious gap of 200,000 years,” said senior study author Chronis Tsedakis, a paleoclimatologist at University College London. According to a new study published in the journal Sciencethis interval coincides with a newly discovered cooling phase that suggests the cold drove out or destroyed any archaic humans.

Researchers have found evidence of cooling in cores of marine sediment taken from the ocean floor off the coast of Portugal. Analysis of key isotopes in marine plankton remaining from both the ocean surface and the ocean floor, and analysis of pollen grains from terrestrial vegetation showed a sharp cooling event about 1.15 million years ago.

Tsedakis said water temperatures near Lisbon, which currently average 70 degrees Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius), have dropped to about 43 F (6C), while landmasses in Europe are experiencing a similar cold phase, possibly causing layers to push the ice southward. The researchers also determined that about 1.13 million years ago, there was a continuous flow of cold water, which they interpreted as meltwater from the breaking up of Europe’s ice sheets as the continent warmed.

“Our planet has gone through multiple cold and warm phases, and traditional timelines show that the peak of the ice age was 900,000 years ago,” Tsedakis said. Said. “Although it has been suggested that there was an even earlier cold period, about 1.1 million years ago, no strong evidence for this has been found so far,” he said.

The new study also includes a detailed reconstruction by study co-author Axel Timmermann, a climatologist at the South Korean Institute of Basic Sciences; this suggests that subcooling would have made Europe too cold for archaic peoples.

It will be more difficult for them to find food because of the cold, because fewer plants and animals will survive than humans used to eat. In addition, archaic people themselves were not adapted to the cold.

“Environmental degradation would have posed a challenge for small hunter-gatherer groups, exacerbated by the possibility that early hominins lacked adequate oil insulation and means of making fire, effective clothing or shelter, leading to much lower population resistance,” the study said. ” writer writes..

“This is the story of how climate variability has profoundly affected humanoid populations in the past and its impacts on all of humanity today as they face extreme weather events and changes in ecosystems,” said paleoanthropologist Michael Petraglia, director of the Australian Center for Human Evolution. Griffith University in Brisbane