Finally, a proper explanation for the disappearance of European megafauna ● A complete paradigm shift, bipedal walking would appear in trees ● What does Attila the Hun have to do with today’s climate change?

Finally, an appropriate explanation for the extinction of the European megafauna

About two hundred years since the French naturalist Georges Cuvier explained what mammoths are, the scientific world, and not only, wondered why they disappeared along with other representatives of the megafauna of the Pleistocene.

Cuvier spoke about the catastrophe, thereby putting forward the hypothesis of catastrophism, which quickly fell apart when new scientific arguments began to appear. Later they talked about overhunting, which was one of the explorers’ favorites. Molins, sudden climate changes, or aliens who hijacked the megafauna to leave us enough hectares for agriculture and pottery have also been hypothesized.

The problem is that none of these hypotheses have ever been based on enough evidence to be universally accepted. More recently, a study published in the journal Scientific Reports by an international team of specialists seems to dot the i’s with a slightly more comprehensive explanation.

Through field research in the Eifel region of Germany, they were able to create a picture of the flora history of the region over the past 60,000 years. To this they added the study of fungi that settled on the excrement of large herbivores. It turned out that the disappearance of megafauna coincides with the emergence of Holocene forests, about 11,400 years ago, without the decline caused by the appearance of Homo sapiens in Europe about 45,000 years ago. Forests would replace the habitat of the megafauna, the steppe, and cut off their access to food sources, causing large herbivores to migrate, followed by carnivores.

Although this is one of the most plausible hypotheses, the current one does not explain the complete disappearance of megafauna. Instead, an exit from Europe during the period of maximum afforestation is the explanation that answers most of the questions.

A complete paradigm shift, bipedal walking would appear on trees

Bidepism, that is, walking on two legs, appeared as a result of living in trees, reports an Anglo-American group of paleoanthropologists in the journal Science Advances. And this means a radical change in the vision of the appearance of bipedal walking.

Researchers came to this conclusion while studying chimpanzees in the Issa Valley in Tanzania. And, the study authors say, the chimpanzees in question live in an environment similar to that of the supposed ancestors of the human species, the Australopithecus. This is a dense forest, separated from each other by open savannah-type spaces.

According to existing hypotheses, bipedal walking arose with the need for Australopithecines to move on the savanna, where they were not only not protected by trees, but also exposed to the danger posed by predators. According to this idea, walking on two legs would provide not only an increased field of vision, but also a possible increase in speed. The problem arose when Issa Valley chimpanzees were observed to be bipedal at least 85% of the time in trees. And this may indicate that previous assumptions were wrong.

Although not 100% certain, the new interpretation seems to be supported by the oldest ever discovered fossils of the hominin Sahelanthropus tchadensis, the putative common ancestor of humans and great apes that lived about 7 million years ago. And this is because representatives of this species were bipedal, although it is true that they lived in a forested environment.

What does Attila the Hun have to do with climate change today?

Probably none, given that Attila lived almost 1,600 years ago. But a group of researchers from Cambridge has a different opinion and claims that climatic changes, similar to today’s, caused not only the migration of the Huns to Europe, but also their attacks on the Roman Empire.

After reconstructing climate fluctuations over the past two thousand years based on tree rings, Cambridge experts believe they have found a correlation between the Hun attacks and the great drought that hit Eurasia in the 5th century AD.

According to data published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology, the drought of recent years recorded in Hungary has a correspondence in the 5th century, more precisely in the period 420-450 AD, a period that coincides with an increase in raids on the borders. of the Roman Empire and with Attila’s rise to power.

Researchers believe that the attacks on the Roman Empire led to a significant reduction in pastures in the area of ​​the Danube and the Tisza. In fact, the attacks on Thrace in 422, 442 and 447 would have been more about food and animal herds than gold. In fact, the most destructive Hunnic attacks on the Roman Empire, those of 447, 451 and 452, coincided with episodes of severe drought in the Carpathian Basin.

The cited authors argue that the gap in understanding between the Huns and the Romans was seemingly surprising given that the Hun elite had access to vast amounts of gold through diplomatic relations with the Roman Empire. Thus, prolonged drought and the disappearance of food sources for humans and animals were the real reason for the Hun invasions.

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