Promises of a freezing cold front approaching to inaugurate the first spring weekend have many Joburgers reaching for electric blankets and stocking up on hot chocolate.
How did our less-technologically advanced ancestors deal with the cold though?
Nicola Honey, public relations executive for Maropeng (the official visitor centre of the Cradle of Humankind and the birthplace of humanity) said that human evolution coincided with long periods of severe environmental changes, including large scale shifts in temperature.
“When tracing our origins in a place like Maropeng, especially on a winter morning with ice in the air, one has to wonder how humans with their rather pitiful pelts did in fact manage to survive through so many centuries of cold,” she said.
As homo sapiens (that’s us) we represent the only hominin species that was able to survive to present. The other hominin species are all extinct. Why did we make it?
It is now widely accepted that the species homo sapiens originated in Africa, a warm place compared to other parts of the world where other hominins lived and evolved.
“Homo neanderthalensis or neanderthals were a species of hominin that were able to deal with the cold weather of Europe and further northern regions because of their unique anatomy,” palaeobiologist, Christine Steininger explained.
Around 46 000 years ago, homo sapiens (humans) moved from Africa to Europe. They must have been quite unprepared for the cold and yet, they survived and settled across the globe, whereas the neanderthals, who were adapted to the cold, died out and became extinct.
This is where it starts to get interesting. Direct studies of ancient DNA from neanderthal bones suggest that humans and neanderthals interbred. Besides offering some warm-bodied shelter in the storm, this may also have contributed to a more robust genetic makeup for future human generations. But still the question remains: Why would one species who was, so to speak, built for the cold become extinct when another species, not really built for the cold, survive?
“Evidence suggests that adaptability to varying environments was one of the key differences between these two evolutionary paths,” Steininger said.
“When there’s a change in the preferred habitat they can either move and try to find it elsewhere or, they can adapt to the new habitat. Otherwise, they become extinct. A characteristic of humans is their ability to adjust to a variety of different habitats and environments.”
She said homo sapiens had specialised tools to extract a variety of dietary resources. They also had broad social networks – they used symbols as a means of communicating and for storing information. This meant that despite many climatic fluctuations, modern humans were able to expand their range over Europe and Asia, and into new areas such as Australia and the Americas. The neanderthals, like many other species, were not as adaptable, and therefore became extinct.
As species, humans have successfully managed to weather many a storm and blizzard through the ages. The question we need to ask now as we snuggle up into our warm blankets and dose ourselves with warm soup is how well our resilience, as the lone species of hominins, will continue to succeed in the future?
