The first humans in Europe had a climate change that could wipe them out. The ancestors of modern humans already lived in the Italian and Iberian peninsulas between 1.2 and 1.4 million years ago, as attested remains found in Atapuerca. But to find their possible descendants we will have to wait almost another half a million, with the discovery of Homo antecessor, also in the site of the Burgos mountain range. What happened in between? Now, a paleoclimatic study has discovered an extreme cold event that could have changed both the climate and the environment to cause that human species to disappear from European soil.
