Did you think you are at the peak of modernity by spreading your solar flavored stick apricot this summer at the beach? Think again, Homo Sapiens had the idea long before you, at a time when the earth crossed an episode of weakening of its dramatic magnetic field. This is what IFLSCIRCE online magazine reports, citing the work of an international team of researchers from the University of Michigan, in the United States.
Their research, published in the journal Science Advances, demonstrate that one of the largest weakenings of the Earth’s magnetic field – the event of Laschamp, which occurred between −42,200 and −41,500 years – had dropped the natural protection of the earth against ultraviolet radiation of almost 90%. Result: the ozone layer found itself continuously bombed by the cosmic rays and unable to filter the carcinogens of the sun. Homo sapiens could have simply been eradicated from the earth if he had not understood that he was in his interest to protect himself.
The authors of the study point out that this period marks a turning point in the clothing practices of Homo Sapiens, with the appearance of better adjusted clothes, tailor -made to face the meteorological and climatic vagaries. It was also at this time that ocher, a ferric rock composed of clay, began to be widely used first in rock art but perhaps also as a natural body ornament to protect itself from the sun’s rays. The ocher is also still used for this purpose in certain regions of the world.
No sunscreen for Neanderthals
“We have found that many of these regions actually correspond fairly closely to the first human activities of 41,000 years ago, with in particular an increase in the use of caves and an increased appeal to a form of prehistoric sunscreen.” Explains Agnit Mukhopadhyay, principal author of the study, in a press release.
Could this brief inversion of the terrestrial magnetic field partly explain the disappearance of the Neanderthal man? The researchers thought that the first homo sapiens had destroyed the Neanderthals by war or competition for food resources. But another hypothesis is possible.
We now know that Homo Sapiens arrived in Europe about 56,000 years ago, or nearly 100 generations before the disappearance of Neanderthals. Knowledge of this long cohabitation today pushes anthropologists to review their theories on the reasons for their extinction.
It is possible that Homo Sapiens was better protected against the violent UV gusts than the Neanderthal man, who may not have the reflex to spread the back of red ocher. Whether this hypothesis is verified or not, the conclusion is the same: put cream this summer.
