Text written in Basque and translated automatically by Elia without any subsequent editing. SEE ORIGINAL

Cultural evolution explains the rapid ecological expansion of our species

The time it took for the human species to spread to almost all terrestrial habitats has been much shorter than simple biological evolution can explain. This is the conclusion of a research published in the journal PNAS. According to him, cultural evolution has made the expansion so rapid. In fact, it has been estimated that if the adaptation had been carried out exclusively through biological mechanisms, it would take 88 million years for the sapiens to leave the cradle of Africa and reach its current expansion. That's 300 times as long as it took.

“If adaptation had been done only through biological mechanisms, it would have taken 88 million years.”

In addition, in those 88 million years, Homo sapiensa would branch into 2,200 different species. However, the genetic diversity of the human species is much lower than that of a certain group of chimpanzees. To reach these conclusions, he has studied the evolution and geographical adaptations of the lineages of 6,000 species of mammals and has seen how culture has allowed the sapiens to jump over natural selection.

At the same time, cultural diversity generates local specialization, so that ethnolinguistic groups occupy territories smaller and more delimited than species. These findings quantify the distinctive role of culture in driving rapid human ecological expansion.