Science
Early Humans Thrived in Rainforests
For generations, scientists looked to the East African savanna as the birthplace of our species. But recently some researchers have put forward a different history: Homo sapiens evolved across the entire continent over the past several hundred thousand years.
If this Africa-wide theory were true, then early humans must have figured out how to live in many environments beyond grasslands. A study published Wednesday shows that as early as 150,000 years ago, some of them lived deep in a West African rainforest.
“What we’re seeing is that, from a very early stage, ecological diversification is at the heart of our species,” said Eleanor Scerri, an evolutionary archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena, Germany, and an author of the study.
In the 20th century, after scientists found many fossils and stone tools in East African savannas, many researchers concluded that our species was especially adapted to life in grasslands and open woodlands, where humans could hunt great herds of mammals.
Only much later, the theory went, did our species become versatile enough to survive in tougher environments. Tropical rainforests appeared to be the toughest of them all. It can be hard to find enough food in jungles, and they offer lots of places for predators to lurk.
“You can’t see what to hunt,” Dr. Scerri said, “and you can’t see what’s coming for you.”
But in 2018, Dr. Scerri and her colleagues challenged the idea that East African grasslands were the single cradle of humanity. The abundance of stone tools and fossils found there, they argued, might have meant simply that the region had the right conditions for preserving those traces of history.
The scientists pointed to other fossils and stone tools discovered from southern and northern Africa. Those artifacts had often been dismissed as the products of extinct human relatives, rather than our own species.
Dr. Scerri and her colleagues suggested that for hundreds of thousands of years, our forerunners lived in isolated populations across Africa, periodically mixing their DNA when they came into contact.
If that were true, then early humans should have also been present in West and Central Africa, where rainforests were common. The oldest firm evidence of humans in African rainforests dated back just 18,000 years. But the acidic soils in tropical forests could have destroyed the bones before they turned to fossils, and tools could have been washed away.
Dr. Scerri came across an older report about a site in the Ivory Coast. The researchers dug a massive trench in a hillside called Anyama. In the hard, sandy sediment, they discovered bits of plant matter as well as some stone tools, though they could not determine their age.
In March 2020, Dr. Scerri and her colleagues traveled to Anyama and excavated a fresh face of sediment, where they found more stone tools. But they worked for only a few days before the Covid pandemic forced them home. They returned to the site in November 2021, only to discover that it had been illegally quarried for road building.
“It was absolutely heartbreaking,” said Eslem Ben Arous, a member of the team now at the National Center for Research on Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain.
Dr. Ben Arous and her colleagues discovered a small area not far from the original dig where they found more tools. But the new site has been destroyed as well.
Still, the researchers managed to gather a lot of clues. Dr. Ben Arous, an expert on geochronology, used new methods to estimate the age of the sediment layers. The oldest layer in which the researchers found stone tools formed 150,000 years ago.
The sediment also preserved wax from the surface of ancient leaves. Analyzing the chemistry of the leaf wax revealed that Anyama was a dense rainforest throughout its history. Even in the ice age, when the cool, dry climate shrank jungles across Africa, Anyama remained a tropical refuge.
Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias, an anthropologist at the University of Cambridge who was not involved in the new study, said that the work offered clear proof that people were living in those jungles — and that they were living there very early in the history of our species.
“It’s important because it confirms what other research predicted,” Dr. Padilla-Iglesias said.
Khady Niang, an archaeologist at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal and an author of the study, noted that many of the oldest artifacts discovered were massive chopping tools crafted from quartz. She speculated that the Anyama people used them to dig up food or hack their way through the rainforest.
“If you move a lot, you need tools to cut the trees that hinder your path,” Dr. Niang said.
The distinctive tool kit makes Dr. Scerri suspect that the Anyama people had already lived in the rainforest long before 150,000 years ago. “They’re not people who have just arrived,” she said. “These are people who had the time to adjust to their living conditions.”
The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is investigating a confirmed measles case in a resident who recently traveled internationally, the agency said in a release Saturday.
This is the fifth measles case identified by the county this year as outbreaks increase across the U.S. and globally.
The infected resident arrived at the Los Angeles International Airport on Thursday on Alaska Airlines Flight 1354. Other travelers at Tom Bradley International Terminal B that day between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. may have been exposed to the virus, officials said.
Public health officials are advising residents to check their immunization status and watch for symptoms if exposed. The measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is the most effective protection from measles, according to the public health department.
“As measles cases increase, it is important that residents take steps to make sure they are fully protected,” L.A. County Health Officer Muntu Davis said in a statement. “The MMR vaccine is the safest and most reliable way to prevent measles and protect yourself, your family, and your community.”
In coordination with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, L.A. County Public Health will notify travelers seated near the infected person on the flight.
Affected travelers are at risk of developing measles from seven to 21 days after exposure to the virus. Symptoms include rash, fever, cough and red, watery eyes.
Measles can lead to complications including pneumonia, brain swelling and even death. Those with symptoms should notify their healthcare facility before visiting, officials said.
So far this year, 1,814 measles cases have been confirmed nationwide, including 48 in California.
In January, health officials recorded the most amount of cases since the U.S. achieved elimination of the virus in 2000.
Archaeologists working in Egypt have discovered a remarkable combination of Homeric epic and Egyptian ritual: a 2,000-year-old mummy with a papyrus fragment of the “Iliad” sealed in a clay packet outside its wrappings.
It is the first time a literary work has been found playing a functional, spiritual role in the mummification process. And it suggests that for a Roman-era Egyptian, the “Iliad” — specifically some lines from Book 2’s “Catalogue of Ships” — was perhaps as crucial for navigating the afterlife as a magical spell.
“The find is incredibly significant, primarily for the discovery of such a papyrus with Greek literary text in its original context,” said Foy Scalf, an Egyptologist at the University of Chicago. “We have evidence that such Greek literary texts could be used as magical amulets and that Homer was frequently cited in such amulets, as well as in the large handbooks now known as ‘The Greco-Egyptian Formularies.’ The new find directly supports that indirect knowledge.”
The mummy, a nonroyal male, was unearthed by the Mission of the University of Barcelona at a burial site known as Oxyrhynchus, as part of a project directed by Ignasi-Xavier Adiego of the university’s Institute of Ancient Near East. Leah Mascia, a specialist in the written and material culture of Greco-Roman and Late Antique Egypt at the Free University of Berlin, coordinated the collaborative breakthrough that finally brought the damaged text to light.
Recognizing that the heavily degraded papyrus required careful analysis, Dr. Mascia worked with a conservator, Margalida Munar, to stabilize the artifact, and Dr. Adiego, an authority on the Carian language, to study the text. Together, their combined expertise in preservation and linguistics allowed them to identify and read the document.
After six years of painstakingly reconstructing tomb fragments, Dr. Mascia uncovered a rare moment of cultural alchemy: Roman Egypt, where foreign and local customs merged. Her analysis, which identified embalmer seals and folding patterns of the papyrus packet, suggests that classical Greek epics were not merely read but physically repurposed.
Traditionally, mummified bodies were buried with sepulchral texts like the “Book of the Dead” and “The Book of Breathing,” formulaic manuals intended to protect and guide the deceased through the underworld. Yet, by the early Roman period, a major shift emerged: the introduction of sealed papyrus packets placed upon the dead.
These new packets contained a surprising mix of texts, including Greco-Egyptian magic, documentary records and even literary works like the “Iliad,” indicating a personalized, alternative funerary practice.
Out of the dumps
The Oxyrhynchus necropolis, located near the modern village of El-Bahnasa about 120 miles south of Cairo, is not just a burial site but an archaeological mother lode. Located on the banks of the Bahr Yussef canal, the area is speckled with ancient garbage dumps that managed to preserve everything from wedding invitations and tax records to horoscopes and early Christian gospels.
The ruins of Oxyrhynchus were initially documented by Vivant Denon, a scholar during Napoleon’s 1798 Egyptian campaign. But they held a secret that remained buried for an additional century, until 1896, when British archaeologists dug up more than 400,000 fragments of papyri from the ancient trash heaps. The discoveries ultimately included lost masterworks by poets and playwrights like Sappho and Euripides, transforming millenniums-old refuse into a cornerstone of classical literature.
In the 1990s, the Mission of the University of Barcelona and the University of Cairo began a joint project largely funded by the Spanish Ministry of Culture and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. This ongoing mission, directed by Maite Mascort i Roca and Esther Pons Mellado and staffed by archaeologists, epigraphists and papyrologists, focuses on various sectors of the necropolis, including No. 22, where experts are reconstructing the elaborate social and religious life of residents during the transition from the Ptolemaic to the Roman era.
Researchers exploring the multichambered burial site have exhumed a remarkable trove of treasures, among them mummies adorned with golden tongues — gold foil placed over the mouth — and at least one with copper, ritualistic additions that may have ensured that the dead could confidently speak their case to Osiris, the god of death and resurrection, before judgment.
A separate, distinct area of the necropolis — Sector 42 — has yielded large jars containing cremated remains. One vessel held the bones of an adult, an infant and a feline, along with fabric fragments. While these individuals most likely date to a slightly different period from the “Iliad” mummy, the immense complexity of these rites implies a wealthy, status-conscious class, providing fresh insight into the spiritual anxieties of the Roman-era community.
A cultural passport
Recovered in December from Tomb 65, the fragmentary papyrus packet contains a passage from the 2,800-year-old “Iliad” that functions as a detailed inventory of the Achaean army’s naval strength and regional origins, describing the forces arrayed against Troy to retrieve Helen. The text mentions specific commanders, such as Guneus, who arrived with “two and twenty ships from Cyphus,” and Tlepolemus, a “son of Hercules” who brought nine ships from Rhodes.
Dr. Mascia’s findings reveal a deliberate, intimate act: a document prepared in a mummification workshop and placed directly upon the body of the deceased. “These sealed papyrus packets may have been regarded as part of an alternative funerary procedure,” she said, adding that further studies were essential to prove this hypothesis.
This spiritual first-aid follows a long tradition. Dr. Scalf noted that “The Greco-Egyptian Formularies” even suggests the “Iliad” doubled as a literal medical kit. For a bed-bound patient shivering with malaria, the prescription was simple: Brace your head against a papyrus scroll of Book 4 to break the fever.
For residents navigating the complex, vibrant crossroads of Roman Egypt, Greek literary papyri may have functioned as a crucial cultural passport, said Anna Dolganov, a historian at the Austrian Archaeological Institute. In Egypt, being Hellenic connoted an exclusive social status and financial privilege — and had to be meticulously documented through genealogies going back across several centuries.
Buried with the dead, the “Iliad” perhaps served as a cheat code for a more comfortable afterlife. Dr. Dolganov wonders if carrying the epic poem was a deliberate strategy to secure entry into the Greek underworld, effectively sidestepping the torturous trials of Egyptian mythology. For these individuals, a Hellenic identity wasn’t just for this world — it was an eternal upgrade, offering a smoother path and higher status in the great beyond.
Science
Ten times worse than benzene — California updates its science on two chemicals in everyday air
Two toxic contaminants present in California’s ambient air appear to be much stronger carcinogens than previously known, state environmental health officials announced Thursday.
The draft finding from the state’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment finds that acrolein and ethylene oxide may pose an estimated cancer risk more than 10 times higher than benzene, a serious carcinogen linked to leukemia and other cancers.
It is the first step in a review process before final risk values are adopted, and it arrives at a time federal air-quality regulations are being reined in.
“If the early air monitoring results bear out, and if the draft cancer values developed are close to what eventually becomes final, then each air contaminant poses an unacceptable cancer risk,” said Kris Thayer, OEHHA’s director.
The update reflects the state’s evolving understanding of its most dangerous pollutants, which has shifted over the decades from visible pollutants, such as smog, to more invisible ones that cause cancer, heart disease and other health harms.
It comes only two months after the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency moved to roll back standards on ethylene oxide, or EtO, in an effort to save millions of dollars in compliance costs for facilities that use the chemical for medical sterilization. The administration said it acted to “safeguard the supply of essential medical equipment,” but experts said the move will also expose more people to health risks.
It also follows a new national report from the American Lung Assn. that found 82% of Californians live in counties with unhealthful air, nearly double the national average.
“This is an important step to better understanding the harms of pollutants impacting Californians’ health,” said Will Barrett, assistant vice president for nationwide clean air policy at the American Lung Assn., who reviewed the state’s findings for The Times. “Following the latest available health science to determine risk is crucial to protecting health.”
Ethylene oxide is a colorless gas often used in the sterilization of medical devices, particularly those that can’t be cleaned using steam or radiation.
Acrolein can be formed when materials burn, such as cigarettes, e-cigarettes and vapes, wood, plastics and gasoline for cars, trucks, ships and aircraft. It can also be released by cooking fats and oils at high temperatures, and has been found in water produced by oil and gas operations and is an ingredient in some pesticides used in irrigation canals.
People can take steps to protect themselves from acrolein exposure in everyday life by avoiding smoking tobacco or using e-cigarettes and vaping products, avoiding smoke from fires or exhaust from diesel and gasoline vehicles and equipment — much of which can also help reduce exposure to ethylene oxide, officials said. When cooking with oils or fats, people should avoid very high temperatures and use a range hood fan when possible.
While both chemicals have been present in the state’s air for years, the new assessments from OEHHA are based on the latest science on health risks, officials said. Both acrolein and ethylene oxide were found to pose an estimated cancer risk exceeding 800 in 1 million — on par with the cancer risk that diesel exhaust was estimated to pose when it first emerged as a major public health concern in the 1990s, the agency said.
In response to the findings, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s May budget revision, released Thursday, includes $2.5 million in funding for the California Air Resources Board and OEHHA in support of research to help reduce people’s exposure to acrolein and ethylene oxide. The funding will help the state identify and track major sources of the chemicals and turn the findings into public health policy outcomes, officials said.
OEHHA’s assessment provides the first cancer risk value for acrolein since it was classified as probably cancer-causing to humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2020. Ethylene oxide was already identified as a carcinogen by the state, but the new assessment updates its risk levels based on the new research. The risk calculations are based on air monitoring data, which vary across the state depending on location, nearby sources and other factors.
Officials said the findings underscore the state’s efforts to strengthen environmental protection measures for residents at a moment when federal officials seek to loosen them.
“Especially in light of some of the national rollbacks we’re seeing on protections for public health, it really underscores how important the work that we’re doing here in California is,” said Courtney Smith, principal deputy executive officer with the Air Resources Board. “Not only for protecting the health of Californians, but also to ensure that there is rigorous, solid science available to other entities as well who may want to pursue additional protections.”
Short-term exposure to EtO by inhalation can cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue respiratory irritation and other adverse health effects, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Longer-term exposure increases the risk of cancers of the white blood cells, such as non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, as well as breast cancer.
Inhaling acrolein can cause nose and throat irritation and a decreased breathing rate. Chronic exposure, such as through cigarette smoke, has been linked to the development of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and respiratory cancers.
The findings also come as California continues to receive poor grades on air quality. The American Lung Assn. annual State of the Air report found that the five U.S. counties with the worst smog pollution are all in California. Bakersfield was the metropolitan area with the worst level of year-round particle pollution for the seventh year in a row, while Los Angeles was the city with the worst ozone pollution, as it has been for 26 of the last 27 years.
“Californians face the most significant smog and soot challenges in the nation, but our air agencies have followed the science to build policies and programs to make real headway,” Barrett said. The state’s latest assessment “speaks to the need for ongoing local efforts while the federal government ignores the science and opens the door for more pollution. California must continue to invest in things like cleaning up truck fleets, broader public education and the underlying science to guide policies to protect health.”
Thursday’s announcement kicks off a 45-day public comment period, after which the draft assessments may be revised before undergoing additional public comment, peer review by the state’s Scientific Review Panel on Toxic Air Contaminants, and eventual adoption.
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