National Academy of Sciences
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Institute of Medicine
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Research to Clarify Past Climate's Influence on Human Evolution


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Homo erectus from Tautavel, France (reconstruktion, Museum Tautavel). Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons by Gerbil. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.

March 3, 2010 -- Knowledge of how past climate may have influenced human evolution could be enhanced with a cross-disciplinary research program to improve human fossil and climate records, says a new report from the National Research Council. The program should focus on locating new fossil sites, drilling on land and in lakes and ocean basins in areas where humans evolved, investing in climate modeling experiments, and enhancing public outreach.