Humans in Africa’s wet tropical forests 150 thousand years ago

Abstract

Humans emerged across Africa shortly before 300 thousand years ago (ka)1,2,3. Although this pan-African evolutionary process implicates diverse environments in the human story, the role of tropical forests remains poorly understood. Here we report a clear association between late Middle Pleistocene material culture and a wet tropical forest in southern Côte d’Ivoire, a region of present-day rainforest. Twinned optically stimulated luminescence and electron spin resonance dating methods constrain the onset of human occupations at Bété I to around 150 ka, linking them with Homo sapiens. Plant wax biomarker, stable isotope, phytolith and pollen analyses of associated sediments all point to a wet forest environment. The results represent the oldest yet known clear association between humans and this habitat type. The secure attribution of stone tool assemblages with the wet forest environment demonstrates that Africa’s forests were not a major ecological barrier for H. sapiens as early as around 150 ka.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Ben Arous, E. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2489-825X Blinkhorn, J.A. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9399-5515 Elliott, S. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3926-0366 Kiahtipes, C.A. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8758-4605 N’zi, C.D. Bateman, M.D. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1756-6046 Duval, M. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3181-7753 Roberts, P. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4403-7548 Patalano, R. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9075-4556 Blackwood, A.F. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6021-6191 Niang, K. Kouamé, E.A. Lebato, E. Hallett, E. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3074-7274 Cerasoni, J.N. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5546-1555 Scott, E. Ilgner, J. Alonso Escarza, M.J. Guédé, F.Y. Scerri, E.M.L. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7468-9977
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords:	Archaeology
Dates:	Published: 26 February 2025 Published (online): 26 February 2025 Accepted: 8 January 2025 Submitted: 16 February 2024
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Geography and Planning
Depositing User:	Symplectic Sheffield
Date Deposited:	07 Mar 2025 13:21
Last Modified:	07 Mar 2025 13:21
Status:	Published online
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1038/s41586-025-08613-y
Related URLs:	PubMed URL
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:224143

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Humans in Africa’s wet tropical forests 150 thousand years ago

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