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Thread: Hm, earliest hominid not from Africa but Europe? :o

  1. #21
    John Doe's Avatar Primicerius
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    Default Re: Hm, earliest hominid not from Africa but Europe? :o

    The fossils 7.2 million years old, the Mediterranean sea formed 5.33 millions years ago , were there any insurmountable natural barriers to prevent our ancestors and wildlife to wander around back then?

  2. #22
    Magister Militum Flavius Aetius's Avatar δούξ θρᾳκήσιου
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    Default Re: Hm, earliest hominid not from Africa but Europe? :o

    That article also states the flood was because it had temporarily become disconnected from the Atlantic 5.6 million years ago and refilled 5.3 million years ago, making your point invalid.

  3. #23
    Charerg's Avatar Citizen
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    Default Re: Hm, earliest hominid not from Africa but Europe? :o

    Not to mention that the Mediterranean Basin during the Messinian Salinity Crisis was probably like Hell on Earth. The Med was reduced to some extremely saline lakes at the deepest basins (btw, this is when the endemic ecosystem of the Med died out due to hypersaline conditions, all the modern life there comes from the Atlantic). Some dried up basins were literally kilometres below sea level, and would have been like Death Valley on steroids (which is "merely" 86 metres below sea level at it's lowest point). The wikipedia article points out that temperature increases by about 10 degrees when going a kilometre below sea level, so parts of the dried up Med may have been 80 degrees in summer (not to mention 1.5 bar atmospheric pressure making rain extremely unlikely)! Makes the Sahara look like a nice and humid place.

    Although I guess the shallower coastal locations might have been a bit more livable. Still, the absence of the Med would have meant a much drier climate in much of the Middle East and Southern Europe.
    Last edited by Charerg; May 29, 2017 at 02:32 AM.
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  4. #24
    Copperknickers II's Avatar quaeri, si sapis
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    Default Re: Hm, earliest hominid not from Africa but Europe? :o

    Quote Originally Posted by John Doe View Post
    The fossils 7.2 million years old, the Mediterranean sea formed 5.33 millions years ago , were there any insurmountable natural barriers to prevent our ancestors and wildlife to wander around back then?
    See my post on page one. The ecosystem in the region of the Middle East and North Africa was as viewed over a geological timespan in a state of flux, which meant that the passage from Africa to the Middle East/Europe was by turns very easy or very difficult, leading to much ebb and flow of animal populations suited to particular habitats as those habitats waxed and waned. This was most pronounced around the 5 mya mark +/- a million years or so which saw the Mediterranean partially dry up and close off only to be refilled again later, but I think I'm correct in saying it was a general trend from the late Miocene up until the end of the Pleistocene that the Sahara, Nile and Fertile Crescent regions were alternately inhospitable and barely passable, and then lush and green and much more easily passable, meaning wildlife which spanned much of the Middle East and North-Eastern Africa was often 'chased' by the encroaching desert into the regions at the fringes of the desert, leading to their spread and differentiation in Southern Africa, India and Europe. It's not remotely surprising that there are primates in the Balkans/Greece therefore since countless other animal species present in the same region as early hominids are also found in Southern Europe.
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  5. #25
    Charerg's Avatar Citizen
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    Default Re: Hm, earliest hominid not from Africa but Europe? :o

    Quote Originally Posted by Copperknickers II View Post
    See my post on page one. The ecosystem in the region of the Middle East and North Africa was as viewed over a geological timespan in a state of flux, which meant that the passage from Africa to the Middle East/Europe was by turns very easy or very difficult, leading to much ebb and flow of animal populations suited to particular habitats as those habitats waxed and waned. This was most pronounced around the 5 mya mark +/- a million years or so which saw the Mediterranean partially dry up and close off only to be refilled again later, but I think I'm correct in saying it was a general trend from the late Miocene up until the end of the Pleistocene that the Sahara, Nile and Fertile Crescent regions were alternately inhospitable and barely passable, and then lush and green and much more easily passable, meaning wildlife which spanned much of the Middle East and North-Eastern Africa was often 'chased' by the encroaching desert into the regions at the fringes of the desert, leading to their spread and differentiation in Southern Africa, India and Europe. It's not remotely surprising that there are primates in the Balkans/Greece therefore since countless other animal species present in the same region as early hominids are also found in Southern Europe.
    Tbh, I don't think there is much reliable data from the Miocene or even Early Pleistocene to suggest a particular start date for the "Sahara pump". Since it's a phenomenon believed to be largely driven by the Milankovitch cycles, presumably such orbital forcing would have been a constant factor even back in the Jurassic (or beyond). A "green Sahara" (actually a "green northern hemisphere", places like Mongolia were a lot more humid during the Neolithic Subpluvial too) occurs if the conditions are right in terms of the Milankovitch cycle (a relatively large axial tilt, and the planet reaches it's perihelion during nothern summer), which cause the planet's thermal balance to develop a stronger northward bias during northern summer than present (which consequently pulls the ITCZ and the associated monsoon rains further northwards than today).

    I should also mention that the humidity of the Sahara during the "green phase" may have been a bit exaggerated in some respects. For example the wikipedia page on the Neolithic Subpluvial quotes Roland Oliver as stating:

    ...in the great massifs of the Tibesti and the Hoggar, the mountaintops, today bare rock, were covered at this period with forests of oak and walnut, lime, alder and elm.
    This statement is based on finds of pollen from the aforementioned trees in Holocene deposits of the Central Sahara. However, more recent research suggests that these pollen probably originate from the Atlas mountains, rather than from Central Sahara (and were transported by the winds to there). Research based on Holocene hyrax poop (detailed in the paper I linked) suggests that the actual flora consisted largely of species endemic to the C. Saharan highlands, and tropical intrusions from the Sahel belt. It seems unlikely that Mediterranean-style forests actually grew there, since if they did, you'd expect their pollen to be present in the hyrax poo.
    Last edited by Charerg; June 01, 2017 at 09:08 AM.
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