Humans in Africa's wet tropical forests 150 thousand years ago.

Humans emerged across Africa shortly before 300 thousand years ago (ka). Although this pan-African evolutionary process implicates diverse environments in the human story, the role of tropical forests remains poorly understood. Here we report a clear association between late Middle Pleistocene material culture and a wet tropical forest in southern Côte d'Ivoire, a region of present-day rainforest.