Human Capital Evolution in a Cooling Climate

Ola Olsson ()
Additional contact information
Ola Olsson: University of Gothenburg

Chapter 3 in Paleoeconomics, 2024, pp 39-58 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract In this chapter, I discuss the expansion of the hominin family tree after Homo erectus and the evolution of new species such as Homo antecessor, Homo heidelbergensis, and Neanderthals in Europe and Denisovans in Asia. Most importantly, I present the Climate Pulse Model, predicting that hominins will concentrate in a few fertile refugia during glacial eras and disperse widely during interglacials. I confront some of the predictions from the model with existing paleoclimatic archives of historical temperature and sea levels. In another application of the model, I analyze the growth of brain volume over three million years and argue that brain growth has effectively acted as a substitute in food production for a deteriorating natural environment.

Keywords: Human capital evolution; Acheulean technology; Climate Pulse Model (CPM); Refugia; Selective extinction; Marine isotope stages; Brain capacity; Social brain hypothesis; Obstetric dilemma (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-031-52784-5_3

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9783031527845

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-52784-5_3

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().