Climate change and human evolution – what a team!

by JGordon on Sep. 10th, 2007

The next step in evolution: photo by silfverduk on flickr.com.A new study might suggest that a drastic climate change gave human evolution a boost, some 70,000 years ago. Before this time, tropical Africa was subject to periodic “megadroughts,” which could kill off huge numbers of plants and animals, and even dry up whole lakes. Around 70,000 BPE these droughts seemed to stop, and the climate stabilized, perhaps providing the impetus for our ancestors’ populations to grow rapidly and migrate.

I hope our currently shifting climate might do the same. I believe I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve always wanted some mutant powers. Wait – that’s not how evolution works? Whatever. When I’ve got my adamantium skeleton, we’ll see who’s making the rules of evolution.