In the Cradles of Civilization, there are entire cities covered in sand that were once thriving places. The climate shifted and humans did with it. One of our greatest cultural achievements has been our ability to adapt to a natural world that is out to destroy and rebuild everything, including us.

A new study shows we were adapting to diverse areas and environmental changes long before the creation of agriculture and resulting civilizations. Even before worldwide migration, we were bending African forests and deserts. Failing to do so was why the probably earliest migration efforts seemed to have disappeared with barely a trace. 

A new analysis of fossil evidence and social science estimates covering the last 120,000 years in Africa finds clues for why numerous dispersals failed but later ones succeeded. Success happened by mastering nature. It wasn't fast, it involved a lot of a failure, but by 70,000 years ago, humans had learned how to inhabit areas from forests to arid deserts. In "Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal", the authors note that humans knew to explore during climate change that created increased rainfall in the Saharo-Arabian desert belt, which created ‘green corridors’ into Eurasia.


Credit: Hallett, E.Y., Leonardi, M., Cerasoni, J.N. et al. 

With the skills they developed, by 50,000 years ago the fastest route out of Africa, a death sentence for earlier mankind, was achieved by sizable groups and became long-lasting. There was no great breakthrough, humans were able to survive nature using distinctive ecological flexibility they learned due to adapting to changing and climatically challenging habitats.