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Archaeologists and Masai landowners conducted excavations at Engaji Nanyori in Tanzania. Julio MercaderOur early human ancestors might have been more adaptable than previously thought: New research suggests Homo erectus was able to surviveand even thriveafter its home in East Africa shriveled up and became a dry, barren landscape.H. erectus is a now-extinct species of early human that experts say arose some two million years ago in Africa. Walking upright, they had longer legs and shorter arms than previous hominins, which gave them a distinctly modern human-like appearance. They also had bigger brains than earlier species, though not quite as large as the brains of todays humans, Homo sapiens.H. erectus persisted for more than 1.5 million years before going extinct around 100,000 years ago. It was one of the first early human species to migrate out of Africa, traveling to distant locales like China and Indonesia.In all, the species existed on Earth for far longer than todays humans have so far, with H. sapiens appearing a mere 300,000 years ago.Homo erectus had longer legs, shorter arms and bigger brains than earlier hominin species. Tim Evanson via Flickr under CC BY-SA 2.0But how was this species able to survive for so long and inhabit such a wide geographic range? Researchers have long puzzled over these questions.Now, it turns out that ecological flexibility may be the answer, according to a new paper published Thursday in the journalCommunications Earth & Environment.That success came down to their ability to survive over a long period marked by many changes to the environment and climate, says study lead author Julio Mercader, a paleoecologist at the University of Calgary in Canada, in a statement.An international team of scientists reached this conclusion after studying a site in northern Tanzania called Engaji Nanyori. The site is rich in H. erectus fossils, as well as stone tools and fossilized grains of pollen. Researchers carefully analyzed these artifacts, as well as rocks, butchered animal bones and other types of archaeological evidence, to reconstruct what the past environment looked like.This type of study is an immense amount of work, as Elke Zeller, a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who did not participate in the project, tells the New York Times Carl Zimmer.Through these painstaking efforts, the research painted a picture of Engaji Nanyori as a dry, semi-desert environment, with little water and few plants. But the landscape hadnt always been that wayin fact, it was previously an open woodland for hundreds of thousands of years, the team found. Roughly a million years ago, the climate shifted drastically, and Engaji Nanyori went from a relatively hospitable habitat to a hyper-arid shrubland.Somehow, H. erectus was able to adjust to this new landscape. The early humans visited water holes that popped up after it rained and hunted the animals that congregated to drink. And across millennia, they repeatedly inhabited the same sites near rivers and streams, strategically taking advantage of the resources they offered. Researchers studied stone tools, fossilized pollen grains and other artifacts from a site known as Engaji Nanyori. Mercader et al. / Communications Earth & Environment, 2025H. erectusalso made their stone tools sharper, presumably for butchery, per the paper, and began bringing tools with them when moving to new locations. These advancements would have helped themThey may have had strategies where they basically say, This is a good tool. I should bring it with me and be ready if we find food, says study co-author Paul Durkin, a geologist at the University of Manitoba in Canada, to the New York Times.This adaptability could help explain why H. erectus was able to move out of Africa and successfully spread to other parts of the world, the researchers add.The findings offer new insights into the lifestyle and behaviors of one of our ancient ancestors, building on other recent research that foundH. erectus lived at high altitudes in present-day Ethiopia. But, more broadly, they also help refute the long-held belief that only H. sapienswith its massive, complex brainwas capable of inhabiting extreme environments.Homo sapiens is often considered to be a species that could deal with all ecological circumstances thrown at themand, indeed, it is impressive what our species was, and has been, able to cope with, study co-author Michael Petraglia, director of the Australian Research Center for Human Evolution at Griffith University, tells Haaretzs Ruth Schuster. However, this does not mean that earlier members of our genus were not also capable of occupying difficult habitats. Our article demonstrates this very clearly and at an early age.Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.Filed Under: Africa, Archaeology, Environment, Evolution, Human Evolution, Human Origins, New Research, Tools
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