Homo sapiens remains found in Ethiopia show they were able to live in mountains higher than 2.500m

Homo sapiens is the only human species alive on Earth currently. This species has been able to colonize several habitats, one of them being the mountains. Living at a height of 2.500 meters or higher has several inconvenients for humans, such as the lack of oxygen, low temperatures, dry environment and intense ultraviolet radiation.

Finch Habera site in South Ethiopia.

On August, Nature newspaper published an article showing the results of the research made on some human bones that were found in the Bale mountains in the Finch Habera site. This site was found at a height of 4.000 meters with the remains of Homo sapiens bones that were 45.000 years old. In this site Tachyoryctes macrocephalus burnt bones were also found - they constituted 93,5% of animal remains - meaning that they were the main part of their diet. Obsidian lithic artifacts were also found. This finding shows that humans were already adapted to live at high heights 45.000 years ago.

Even though 160.000 year old bones had been previously found at a height of 3.280 meters in Karst Baishiya, a cave in China, they were not interpreted as a sign of human adaptation to this type of environment because those biological reminds were not found next to arqueological reminds.

Source of the new: https://elpais.com/elpais/2019/08/05/ciencia/1565023941_802875.html

Article mentioned: Ossendorf et al. (August, 2019). Middle Stone Age foragers resided in high elevations of the glaciated Bale Mountains, Ethiopia. Science, (365) 583–587