Our early human ancestors may have had a hard time millions of years ago. For the first time ever, scientists have managed to piece together the type of environment our ancestors lived in, and have found that their lives may have been harder than expected.
The new work is all thanks to a site that was uncovered in 1959 in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. This site housed thousands of animal bones and stone tools. But that's not all it had. With excavations, researchers were able to collect soil samples that allowed them to better understand what the landscape was like millions of years ago.
So what kind of landscape did our ancestors have to deal with? Early human ancestors - who looked a bit like a cross between apes and modern humans - lived in a landscape that included a freshwater spring, wetlands, woodlands and even some grasslands.
"We were able to map out what the plants were on the landscape with respect to where the humans and their stone tools were found," Gail M. Ashley, professor in the Rutgers Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in the School of Arts and Sciences, said. "That's never been done before. Mapping was done by analyzing the soils in one geological bed, and in that bed there were bones of two different hominin species."
After examining the site, the researchers don't believe that ancient human ancestors camped in the woodland areas, which were forested with palm and acacia trees. However, it's possible that they ate meals in these woods for the sake of safety.
But what did they eat? From bones, the researchers found that these ancient ancestors ate giraffes, elephants and wildebeests. Currently, though, researchers are unsure whether they killed the animals themselves or simply scavenged the leftovers from other animals. What they're certain of, though, is that they had to compete with carnivores such as lions, leopards and hyenas.
Ashley admits that "it was a tough living. It was a very stressful life because they were in continual competition with carnivores for their food."
These latest findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reveal a bit more about our ancient ancestors. This, in turn, may tell researchers a bit more about how humans evolved.
