Unveiling the Secrets of Africa’s Ancient Rainforests: A 150,000-Year Journey Through Time
Humans Moved into African Rainforests at Least 150,000 Years Ago
The discovery of ancient human settlements in West Africa’s rainforests has provided new insights into the evolution of Homo sapiens. A recent investigation of a previously excavated site in the Ivory Coast has revealed that people inhabited this region’s rainforests by around 150,000 years ago.
Homo sapiens, the species to which modern humans belong, is believed to have originated in Africa around 300,000 years ago.
The earliest fossils of anatomically modern humans were found in Ethiopia and date back to approximately 195,000-160,000 years ago.
These early humans evolved from a common ancestor with other extinct human species, such as Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis.
Over time, Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa and replaced other human species, eventually becoming the dominant species globally.
Genetic studies suggest that all modern humans share a common ancestry within the past 200,000 years.
This finding is significant because it pushes back the known timeline for human occupation of African rainforests by tens of thousands of years. The oldest secure evidence for humans living in these forests was previously dated to about 18,000 years ago. Furthermore, this discovery suggests that early humans may have evolved across Africa, rather than emerging from a single region.
The human occupation of African rainforests dates back thousands of years.
Indigenous communities such as the Baka and Mbuti people have traditionally lived in these forests, relying on hunting and gathering for sustenance.
These communities have developed unique cultures and relationships with the forest environment.
The rainforests also provided resources for early agricultural societies, including the Nok culture in Nigeria.
Today, human occupation of African rainforests continues to expand due to deforestation and urbanization.
The site in question, Bété I, was discovered in the early 1980s and has since been excavated multiple times. In 2020, archaeologist Ben Arous and his team re-examined the site using advanced sediment dating methods. Their analysis revealed that the stone tools found at the site were likely used by humans who lived in the rainforest environment.
The Bété are an ethnic group native to the southeastern region of Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa.
They have a population of approximately 1.5 million people.
The Bété language belongs to the Kru branch of the Niger-Congo language family.
Traditionally, the 'farmers and traders' were the main occupations of the Bété, with a strong emphasis on community and social hierarchy.
Today, many Bété people continue to live in rural areas, working primarily in 'agriculture'.
The discovery of human occupation in West Africa’s rainforests around 150,000 years ago has implications for our understanding of Homo sapiens evolution. It suggests that early humans may have evolved through mating among populations based in different African regions and habitats, including West Africa’s rainforests. This theory is supported by the fact that the new findings also strengthen an argument that H. sapiens evolved roughly 300,000 years ago.
Eleanor Scerri, a colleague of Ben Arous at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, suspects that ancient rainforest pioneers served as ancestors of later Stone Age populations in Ivory Coast‘s rainforests and coastal mangrove forests farther north in what is now Senegal. She notes that even around 150,000 years ago, ‘when these groups coalesced, their exchanges shaped the course of our evolution and likely contributed to the success of our species.’
- sciencenews.org | Humans moved into African rainforests at least 150,000 years ago
