Hominid habitat preferences

https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/sciadv.adq3613
The evolving three-dimensional
landscape of human adaptation
9 October 2024
Abstract
Over the past 3 million years, humans
have expanded their ecological niche
and adapted to more diverse environments.
The temporal evolution and underlying
drivers behind this niche expansion
remain largely unknown. By combining
archeological findings with landscape
topographic data and model simulations of
the climate and biomes, we show that
human sites clustered in areas with
increased terrain roughness,
corresponding to higher levels of
biodiversity. We find a gradual increase
in human habitat preferences toward
rough terrains until about 1.1 million
years ago (Ma), followed by a 300
thousand-year-long contraction of the
ecological niche. This period coincided
with the Mid-Pleistocene Transition and
previously hypothesized ancestral
population bottlenecks. Our statistical
analysis further reveals that from
0.8 Ma onward, the human niche expanded
again, with human species (e.g.,
H. heidelbergensis, H. neanderthalensis,
and H. sapiens) adapting to rougher
terrain, colder and drier conditions,
and toward regions of higher ecological
diversity.