A study reveals that Europe's ancient forests were open woodlands for 20 million years, challenging previous assumptions.

What it means

A new synthesis of fossil pollen and plant-fossil data shows that Europe's landscape for the past 20 million years was dominated not by dense, dark forests but by open woodlands—a mosaic of scattered trees, grassy clearings, and wildflower meadows. This challenges the long-held assumption that Europe was covered by continuous closed-canopy forest before large-scale human agriculture, and suggests that large herbivores such as elephants and rhinos played a key role in maintaining openness long before humans arrived.

Accuracy & sourcesGrounded

The claim is solidly grounded in a peer-reviewed study published in Science Advances in 2023 (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adi9135) by researchers at Aarhus University. The Science Daily article and other media coverage are reputable secondary reports that closely reflect the study's conclusions; the underlying data and methodology are publicly available and have withstood scientific scrutiny.

How new

The underlying study was published in 2023, but this wave of news coverage is genuinely new from November 2026.

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