Mathieu Duval

Feb 26, 2025 | nature.com | Eslem Ben Arous |James Blinkhorn |Sarah Elliott |Christopher A. Kiahtipes |Mark Bateman |Mathieu Duval | +5 more

AbstractHumans emerged across Africa shortly before 300 thousand years ago (ka)1,2,3. Although this pan-African evolutionary process implicates diverse environments in the human story, the role of tropical forests remains poorly understood. Here we report a clear association between late Middle Pleistocene material culture and a wet tropical forest in southern Côte d’Ivoire, a region of present-day rainforest.

Jan 10, 2024 | nature.com | Yingqi Zhang |Kira E Westaway |Simon G Haberle |Juliën K. Lubeek |Russell Ciochon |Mike Morley | +7 more

AbstractThe largest ever primate and one of the largest of the southeast Asian megafauna, Gigantopithecus blacki1, persisted in China from about 2.0 million years until the late middle Pleistocene when it became extinct2,3,4. Its demise is enigmatic considering that it was one of the few Asian great apes to go extinct in the last 2.6 million years, whereas others, including orangutan, survived until the present5. The cause of the disappearance of G.