**Reinterpreting the Past: The Role of Neanderthals and Early Humans in Shaping Ancient Europe**
Envision an elephant roaming Ice Age France. Now imagine a Neanderthal capturing it using flames and spears. Recent research indicates that those ancient hunters were not merely surviving in the primeval forests of Europe: they were actively transforming them, igniting fires and hunting megafauna on a scale that scientists are just beginning to measure.
A collaborative research team from Aarhus University and various institutions throughout Europe has employed advanced computer simulations to investigate how humans affected vegetation patterns during two separate warm periods, tens of thousands of years prior to any agriculture. The results, published in PLOS One, challenge the idyllic idea of untouched wilderness devoid of human influence.
“The study presents a new perspective on history,” comments Jens-Christian Svenning, a biology professor at Aarhus University and co-author of the research. The team juxtaposed simulation outcomes with comprehensive pollen data from the Last Interglacial period (125,000 to 116,000 years ago, when Neanderthals inhabited Europe) and the Early Holocene period (12,000 to 8,000 years ago, when Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of our species resided there).
**Fire and Hunting Altered the Landscape**
The simulations disclosed something surprising: climate change, grazing by massive herbivores like elephants and bison, and natural wildfires alone could not account for the vegetation patterns indicated in ancient pollen. Only when the researchers incorporated human actions, specifically hunting and fires set by humans, did the models correspond with the fossil evidence.
“It became evident that climate change, large herbivores, and natural fires independently could not elucidate the pollen data outcomes. Introducing humans into the equation, along with the repercussions of human-induced wildfires and hunting, resulted in a significantly improved fit.”
The degree of influence fluctuated by era. The research posits that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers may have shaped as much as 47 percent of plant species distribution throughout Europe. Neanderthals contributed a smaller yet significant impact: approximately 6 percent on plant diversity and 14 percent on vegetation openness, according to study co-author Anastasia Nikulina.
Part of this effect stemmed from fire. Incinerating trees and shrubs created openings in what would have otherwise been dense forests. However, hunting played an equally vital, albeit less apparent, role. A decrease in grazing animals led to reduced browsing pressure, which paradoxically facilitated the growth of more dense vegetation in certain areas.
**Even Massive Elephants Were Vulnerable**
It turns out that Neanderthals accomplished remarkable achievements. Svenning points out that they hunted and brought down elephants weighing as much as 13 tons. This is a remarkable feat for small groups equipped with Stone Age tools. Nonetheless, their population remained sparse enough that they did not eradicate the megafauna or completely disrupt these animals’ ecological roles.
By the Mesolithic period, circumstances had altered. Many of the largest species were extinct or in decline, a component of the broader wave of megafaunal extinction that followed the global expansion of Homo sapiens. The landscape was increasingly open, and human influence was more evident.
“The Neanderthals and the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers served as active co-creators of Europe’s ecosystems.”
Nikulina emphasizes the study’s interdisciplinary framework, which integrated ecology, archaeology, and palynology (the study of pollen) with AI-driven optimization algorithms to conduct thousands of scenarios. The team compiled spatial data covering the entire continent over millennia, an unusually ambitious dataset for this type of research.
Nonetheless, there remain gaps. Svenning and Nikulina suggest that future simulations should examine other regions, particularly the Americas and Australia, where Homo sapiens arrived without earlier hominin predecessors. Such comparisons could unveil landscape characteristics with and without extended human presence. They also highlight that localized studies are essential to comprehending how these broad trends manifested in specific areas.
This research not only revises prehistory. It recontextualizes it, indicating that the notion of an undisturbed wilderness may have never existed in Europe, at least not over the past 100,000 years.
[PLOS One: 10.1371/journal.pone.0328218](https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0328218)
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