When you look at a map, you can hazard a pretty good guess at where the North and South Poles are.

However, because of the fluidity at the Earth’s core, our planet’s magnetic field is not stable, meaning that, over time, the poles actually move.

And sometimes, the power of movement of the molten iron in the Earth’s outer core is sufficient to actually make the poles flip.

Such an event would be catastrophic to our modern ways of life, with disruption to our technology, as things like GPS would suddenly be unable to function in the ways that we’ve become so accustomed to, as the University of Michigan’s Agnit Mukhopadhyay explained in a statement about his research:

“If such an event were to happen today, we would see a complete blackout in several different sectors. Our communication satellites would not work. Many of our telecommunication arrays, which are on the ground, would be severely affected by the smallest of space weather events, not to mention the human impacts which would also play a pretty massive role in our day-to-day lives.”

However, the poles flipping – as they have done around 180 times in the Earth’s history – could cause a more concerning effect: increased radiation.

In a recent study published in the academic journal Science Advances, a research team led by experts from Michigan Engineering and the University of Michigan Department of Anthropology explained not only how such events take place, but also the human impacts thereafter.

And while creating a 3D model of the Laschamps excursion – the most recent time when the Earth’s poles wandered, 41,000 years ago – Mukhopadhyay, the study’s lead author, noticed something fascinating.

Not only did the Earth’s magnetic field reduce considerably, the poles wandered closer to the equator. While this would have allowed for some positives – namely the fact that the stunning aurora would have been seen throughout most of the world – there were significant drawbacks too.

And according to researchers, this geomagnetic event could have changed the course of humanity forever.

That’s because of one of the unhappy consequences of the wandering poles was massively increased solar radiation, as Mukhopadhyay explains:

“In the study, we combined all of the regions where the magnetic field would not have been connected, allowing cosmic radiation, or any kind of energetic particles from the sun, to seep all the way in to the ground.”

It seems that this increased radiation changed the trajectory of not only species living 41,000 years ago, but our own modern populations too. And that’s because of how our ancestors learned to adapt to their new circumstances.

The researchers explain that around the same time as the Laschamps excursion, Homo sapiens started to adapt the ways in which they lived, applying ochre to their skin to protect from the sun and tailoring clothing too, as Mukhopadhyay continued:

“We found that many of those regions actually match pretty closely with early human activity from 41,000 years ago, specifically an increase in the use of caves and an increase in the use of prehistoric sunscreen.”

And it seems no coincidence that at the same as Homo sapiens were adapting, Neanderthals were disappearing.

In fact, just 1,000 years later, there is no evidence that Neanderthals lived in Europe at all.

With the research team suggesting that the ability to protect from the sun through tailored clothing and proto-sunscreen may have been the difference between surviving or not, it seems that the increased solar radiation during the Laschamps excursion could have ultimately been the reason that the Neanderthals were wiped out.

This gives researchers important clues as to what might happen if the poles were to flip in our lifetimes – and, importantly, the knowledge that adaption would be key to our survival, as Mukhopadhyay explained:

“Many people say that a planet cannot sustain life without a strong magnetic field. Looking at prehistoric Earth, and especially at events like this, helps us study exoplanetary physics from a very different vantage point. Life did exist back then. But it was a little bit different than it is today.”

But the good news is that with our modern understanding of radiation and skin protection, our technology might be wiped out but at least our species won’t.

If you think that’s impressive, check out this story about a “goldmine” of lithium that was found in the U.S. that could completely change the EV battery game.