You must have read about Ice Age. The time when most of the earth was covered with ice. Even then the ancestors of us humans (Neanderthals) used to live on the earth thousands of years ago. Although the beginnings of modern humans homo sapiens is considered from Whose history is said to be about 3 lakh years old. He was born in Africa and from there he spread all over the world.
Homo sapiens reached Europe about 40 thousand years ago. When the Ice Age was going on in Europe, most of the area there was covered with ice. It was almost impossible for humans to live among huge icebergs. In such a situation, Homo Sapiens, who had reached Europe, had to face a lot of problems. The question is how would we human ancestors have survived during the Ice Age.
when the earth was coldest
Recently researchers have done a new research in this regard. He has studied the genome of 356 Homo sapiens i.e. humans living in the area called Europe from 25 thousand years ago to 5 thousand years ago.
The genome studies of Homo sapiens of the category of hunter-gatherers (who hunt and gather food) have been done, they also belong to the period in which the Ice Age was at its peak for 6000 years. That is, when it was the coldest season on earth.
This research study has been done under the leadership of Cosimo Post, who teaches at Tübingen University in Germany. Apart from He Yu, a researcher at Peking University in China, other researchers were also involved with him. This study has been published in the research journal Nature.
Homo sapiens migrated to warmer regions
During the study of the genome study, information has been revealed about the appearance, diet and movement of the population of Europe during the Ice Age. Researchers said that during that period some populations of Homo sapiens had migrated towards the warmer regions of Europe, hence their survival. Countries like Spain, France and Portugal are inhabited in the areas where he went.
On the other hand, the people who lived around the Italian peninsula were exposed to the cold due to the heavy snow there. According to the report, many important information has also been revealed in this study about the fair skin and blue eyes of Europeans.
According to Cosimo Post, “This is by far the largest data set of humans living in Europe. Researcher Hee Yu says, “This study updates our knowledge so far about how humans survived and survived the Ice Age.”
How did you survive in the coldest weather?
The first Neanderthals lived in Europe and became extinct after 40 thousand years. This was the time when the species of modern humans i.e. Homo sapiens reached Europe. During the Ice Age, when it was the coldest season, the area of Europe was covered with very large pieces of ice. And where the ground was not covered with pieces of ice, the soil had frozen in such a way that tundra conditions had arisen. That era is called the Last Glacial Maximum.
During the Ice Age, different groups of Homo sapiens roamed from place to place in Europe. During this he used to hunt huge mammals. They hunted animals like Mammoth, Rhino and Reindeer and made them their food. Apart from these, they also used to get food from trees and plants.
Who survives and who perishes?
Reports suggest that during the Ice Age, those humans could survive who took refuge in the Iberian Peninsula and parts of France. The new study found that the Italian peninsula, which was previously thought to have been a refuge during the last glacial, became extinct during the Ice Age.
Johannes Krause, director and senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, says that the extinction of the inhabitants of the Italian peninsula is a surprising event. Re-migration in that area started about 19 thousand years ago. From 14000 years ago to 13000 years ago i.e. for 1000 years, the climate in most parts of Europe became warm and habitable.