Early human migrations - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Early human migrations began when Homo erectus

Homo erectus

Homo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived from the end of the Pliocene epoch to the later Pleistocene, about . The species originated in Africa and spread as far as India, China and Java. There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H...

first migrated out of Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

over the Levantine corridor

Levantine corridor

The Levantine corridor is the relatively narrow strip between the Mediterranean Sea to the northwest and deserts to the southeast and connects Africa into Eurasia. This corridor is a land route of migrations of animals between Eurasia and Africa. In particular, it is believed that early hominids...

and Horn of Africa

Horn of Africa

The Horn of Africa is a peninsula in East Africa that juts hundreds of kilometers into the Arabian Sea and lies along the southern side of the Gulf of Aden. It is the easternmost projection of the African continent...

to Eurasia

Eurasia

Eurasia is a continent or supercontinent comprising the traditional continents of Europe and Asia ; covering about 52,990,000 km2 or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres...

about 1.8 million years ago, a migration probably sparked by the development of language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

(a former rudimentary language as argued by Fischer's hypothesis . The expansion of H. erectus out of Africa was followed by that of Homo antecessor

Homo antecessor

Homo antecessor is an extinct human species dating from 1.2 million to 800,000 years ago, that was discovered by Eudald Carbonell, Juan Luis Arsuaga and J. M. Bermúdez de Castro. H. antecessor is one of the earliest known human varieties in Europe. Various archaeologists and anthropologists have...

into Europe around 800,000 years ago, followed by Homo heidelbergensis

Homo heidelbergensis

Homo heidelbergensis is an extinct species of the genus Homo which may be the direct ancestor of both Homo neanderthalensis in Europe and Homo sapiens. The best evidence found for these hominins date between 600,000 and 400,000 years ago. H...

around 600,000 years ago, where they probably evolved to become the Neanderthal

Neanderthal

The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...

s.

Modern humans, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa up to 200,000 years ago and reached the Near East

Near East

The Near East is a geographical term that covers different countries for geographers, archeologists, and historians, on the one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...

around 125,000 years ago. From the Near East, these populations spread east to South Asia by 50,000 years ago, and on to Australia by 40,000 years ago, when for the first time H. sapiens reached territory never reached by H. erectus. H. sapiens reached Europe

Paleolithic Europe

Paleolithic Europe refers to the Paleolithic period of Europe, a prehistoric era distinguished by the development of the first stone tools and which covers roughly 99% of human technological history...

around 40,000 years ago, eventually replacing the Neanderthal population. East Asia

East Asia

East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...

was reached by 30,000 years ago.

The date of migration to North America

Models of migration to the New World

There have been several models for the human settlement of the Americas proposed by various academic communities. The question of how, when and why humans first entered the Americas is of intense interest to archaeologists and anthropologists, and has been a subject of heated debate for centuries...

is disputed; it may have taken place around 30 millennia ago, or considerably later, around 14 millennia ago. Colonisation of the Pacific islands of Polynesia began around 1300 BC, and was completed by 900 AD. The ancestors of Polynesians left Taiwan around 5200 years ago.

Early humans (before Homo sapiens)

Early members of the Homo

Homo (genus)

Homo is the genus that includes modern humans and species closely related to them. The genus is estimated to be about 2.3 to 2.4 million years old, evolving from australopithecine ancestors with the appearance of Homo habilis....

genus, i.e. Homo ergaster

Homo ergaster

Homo ergaster is an extinct chronospecies of Homo that lived in eastern and southern Africa during the early Pleistocene, about 2.5–1.7 million years ago.There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H...

, Homo erectus

Homo erectus

and Homo heidelbergensis

Homo heidelbergensis

, migrated from Africa during the Early Pleistocene

Early Pleistocene

Calabrian is a subdivision of the Pleistocene Epoch of the Geologic time scale. ~1.8 Ma.—781,000 years ago ± 5,000 years, a period of ~.The end of the stage is defined by the last magnetic pole reversal and plunge in to an ice age and global drying possibly colder and drier than the late Miocene ...

, possibly as a result of the operation of the Saharan pump

Sahara pump theory

The Sahara pump theory is a hypothesis that explains how flora and fauna migrated between Eurasia and Africa via a Levantine land bridge. The theory observes that extended periods of abundant rainfall lasting many thousands of years in Africa are associated with a "wet Sahara" phase, during which...

, around 1.9 million years ago, and dispersed throughout most of the Old World

Old World

The Old World consists of those parts of the world known to classical antiquity and the European Middle Ages. It is used in the context of, and contrast with, the "New World" ....

, reaching as far as Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...

. The date of original dispersal beyond Africa virtually coincides with the appearance of Homo ergaster in the fossil record, and the associated first emergence of full bipedalism, and about half a million years after the appearance of the Homo genus itself and the first stone tool

Stone tool

A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric, particularly Stone Age cultures that have become extinct...

s of the Oldowan industry.
Key sites for this early migration out of Africa are Riwat

Riwat

Riwat is a Lower Paleolithic site in Punjab, northern Pakistan, providing evidence of Homo occupation that is among the earliest outside Africa, dating to 1.9 million years ago. The site was excavated in 1983.-References:...

in Pakistan (1.9 Mya), Ubeidiya in the Levant (1.5 Mya) and Dmanisi

Dmanisi

Dmanisi is a townlet and archaeological site in Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia approximately 93 km southwest of the nation’s capital Tbilisi in the river valley of Mashavera.- History :...

in the Caucasus (1.7 Mya).

China was populated more than a million years ago,
as early as 1.66 Mya based on stone artifacts found in the Nihewan Basin.
Stone tools found at Xiaochangliang

Xiaochangliang

Xiaochangliang is the site of some of the earliest paleolithic remains in East Asia, located in the Nihewan Basin in Yangyuan County, Hebei, China, most famous for the stone tools discovered there.-Stone Tools:...

site were dated to 1.36 million years ago.
The archaeological site of Xihoudu

Xihoudu

Xihoudu is an archological site located in the Shanxi Province of China. The site dates to the Paleolithic Age. In total 32 stone implements were found at the site....

in Shanxi

Shanxi

' is a province in Northern China. Its one-character abbreviation is "晋" , after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring and Autumn Period....

Province is the earliest recorded use of fire by Homo erectus, which is dated 1.27 million years ago.

Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia

(Java

Java

Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...

) was reached about 1.7 million years ago (Meganthropus

Meganthropus

Meganthropus is a name commonly given to several large jaw and skull fragments from Sangiran, Central Java. The original scientific name was Meganthropus palaeojavanicus, and while it is commonly considered invalid today, the genus name has survived as something of an informal nickname for the...

). West Europe

Paleolithic Europe

was first populated around 1.2 million years ago (Atapuerca

Atapuerca

The Atapuerca Mountains is an ancient karstic region of Spain, in the province of Burgos and near Atapuerca and Ibeas de Juarros. It contains several caves, where fossils and stone tools of the earliest known Hominins in West Europe have been found. The earliest hominids may have dated to 1.2...

).

Bruce Bower has suggested that Homo erectus may have built rafts and sailed oceans, a theory that has raised some controversy.

Homo sapiens migrations

Homo sapiens sapiens is supposed to have appeared in East Africa between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago (Homo sapiens idaltu

Homo sapiens idaltu

Homo sapiens idaltu is an extinct subspecies of Homo sapiens that lived almost 160,000 years ago in Pleistocene Africa. is from the Saho-Afar word meaning "elder or first born"....

, found at site Middle Awash

Middle Awash

The Middle Awash is an archaeological site along the Awash River in Ethiopia's Afar Depression. A number of Pleistocene and late Miocene hominid remains have been found at the site, along with some of the oldest known Olduwan stone artifacts and patches of fire-baked clay, disputed evidence of the...

in Ethiopia, lived about 160,000 years ago, is considered the oldest known anatomically modern human).

From there they spread around the world. An exodus from Africa

Recent African origin of modern humans

In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is the most widely accepted model describing the origin and early dispersal of anatomically modern humans...

over the Arabian Peninsula

Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...

around 60,000 years ago brought modern humans to Eurasia

Eurasia

, with one group rapidly settling coastal areas around the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

and one group migrating north to steppes of Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

.

The migration path is a matter of debate and study. Genetics have shed some light on this matter.

Within Africa

The matrilinear most recent common ancestor

Most recent common ancestor

In genetics, the most recent common ancestor of any set of organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly descended...

shared by all living human beings, dubbed Mitochondrial Eve

Mitochondrial Eve

In the field of human genetics, Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal "MRCA" . In other words, she was the woman from whom all living humans today descend, on their mother's side, and through the mothers of those mothers and so on, back until all lines converge on one person...

, probably lived roughly 120-150 millennia ago, the time of Homo sapiens idaltu

Homo sapiens idaltu

Homo sapiens idaltu is an extinct subspecies of Homo sapiens that lived almost 160,000 years ago in Pleistocene Africa. is from the Saho-Afar word meaning "elder or first born"....

, probably in East Africa

East Africa

East Africa or Eastern Africa is the easterly region of the African continent, variably defined by geography or geopolitics. In the UN scheme of geographic regions, 19 territories constitute Eastern Africa:...

.

The broad study of African genetic diversity headed by Dr. Sarah Tishkoff found the San people

Bushmen

The indigenous people of Southern Africa, whose territory spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola, are variously referred to as Bushmen, San, Sho, Barwa, Kung, or Khwe...

to express the greatest genetic diversity among the 113 distinct populations sampled, making them one of 14 "ancestral population clusters." The research also located the origin of modern human migration in south-western Africa, near the coastal border of Namibia

Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...

and Angola

Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

.

Around 100,000-80,000 years ago, three main lines of Homo sapiens diverged. Bearers of mitochondrial haplogroup L0

Haplogroup L0 (mtDNA)

-Distribution:It is found most commonly in the Sub-Saharan Africa. It reaches its highest frequency in the Khoisan people at 73%. Some of the higher frequencies are: Namibia 79%, South Africa 83% and Botswana 100%....

(mtDNA) / A

Haplogroup A (Y-DNA)

In human genetics, Haplogroup A refers to a group of y-chromosome lineages that were among the first to branch off from the root of the human y-chromosome phylogeny...

(Y-DNA) colonized Southern Africa (the ancestors of the Khoisan

Khoisan

Khoisan is a unifying name for two ethnic groups of Southern Africa, who share physical and putative linguistic characteristics distinct from the Bantu majority of the region. Culturally, the Khoisan are divided into the foraging San and the pastoral Khoi...

(Capoid

Capoid

The Capoid race is a historical racial category proposed in 1962 by anthropologist Carleton S. Coon and named after the Cape of Good Hope; these people had formerly been regarded as a sub-type of the historical racial category Negroid....

) peoples), bearers of haplogroup L1

Haplogroup L1 (mtDNA)

In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup L1 is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup common in Central and West Africa.-Origin:Haplogroup L1 is believed to have appeared approximately 110,000 to 170,000 years ago...

(mtDNA) / B

Haplogroup B (Y-DNA)

In human genetics, Haplogroup B is a Y-chromosome haplogroup.-Distribution:Haplogroup B is localized to sub-Saharan Africa, especially to tropical forests of West-Central Africa. After Y-haplogroup A, it is the second oldest and one of the most diverse human Y-haplogroups...

(Y-DNA) settled Central and West Africa (the ancestors of western pygmies), and bearers of haplogroups L2

Haplogroup L2 (mtDNA)

In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup L2 is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup typical of Africa. Its subclade L2a is a somewhat frequent and widespread mtDNA cluster in Africa, as well as in the African diaspora Americans . et al.-Origin:L2 is a common African lineage. It is believed to...

, L3

Haplogroup L3 (mtDNA)

In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup L3 is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup. Haplogroup L3 has played a pivotal role in the history of the human species...

, and others mtDNA remained in East Africa (the ancestors of Niger–Congo- and Nilo-Saharan-speaking peoples). (see L-mtDNA

Macro-haplogroup L (mtDNA)

In human mitochondrial genetics, L is the mitochondrial DNA macro-haplogroup that is at the root of the human mtDNA phylogenetic tree. As such, it represents the most ancestral mitochondrial lineage of all currently living modern humans....

)

Exodus from Africa

According to the Recent African Origin hypothesis

Recent African origin of modern humans

In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is the most widely accepted model describing the origin and early dispersal of anatomically modern humans...

a small group of the L3 bearers living in East Africa

East Africa

migrated north east, possibly searching for food or escaping adverse conditions, crossing the Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

about 70 millennia ago, and in the process going on to populate the rest of the world. According to some authors, based in the fact that only descents of L3

Haplogroup L3 (mtDNA)

In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup L3 is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup. Haplogroup L3 has played a pivotal role in the history of the human species...

are found outside Africa, only a few people left Africa in a single migration to a settlement in the Arabian peninsula. From that settlement, some others point to the possibility of several waves of expansion close in time. For example, Wells

Spencer Wells

Spencer Wells is a geneticist and anthropologist, an at the National Geographic Society, and Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of '56 Professor at Cornell University. He leads The Genographic Project.-Education:...

says that the early travelers followed the southern coastline of Asia, crossed about 250 kilometers [155 miles] of sea (probably by simple boats or rafts), and colonized Australia by around 50,000 years ago. The Aborigines of Australia

Australian Aborigines

Australian Aborigines , also called Aboriginal Australians, from the latin ab originem , are people who are indigenous to most of the Australian continentthat is, to mainland Australia and the island of Tasmania...

, Wells says, are the descendants of the first wave of migration out of Africa.

Around 50,000 years ago the world was entering the last ice age and water was trapped in the polar ice caps, so sea levels were much lower. Today at the Gate of Grief

Bab-el-Mandeb

The Bab-el-Mandeb meaning "Gate of Grief" in Arabic , is a strait located between Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula, Djibouti and Eritrea, north of Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, and connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden...

the Red Sea is about 12 miles (20 kilometres) wide but 50,000 years ago it was much narrower and sea levels were 70 metres lower. Though the straits were never completely closed, there may have been islands in between which could be reached by simple rafts. Shell middens 125,000 years old indicate that the diet of early humans in Eritrea

Eritrea

Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...

included sea food obtained by beachcombing

Beachcombing

Beachcombing and beachcomber are words with multiple, but related, meanings that have evolved over time.A beachcomber is someone who "combs" the beach, and the intertidal zone in general, looking for things of value, interest or utility....

. This has been seen as evidence that humans may have crossed the Red Sea in search of food sources on new beaches.

South Asia and Australia

Some genetic evidence points to migrations out of Africa along two routes. However, other studies suggest that a single migration occurred, followed by rapid northern migration of a subset of the group. Once in West Asia, the people who remained south (or took the southern route) spread generation by generation around the coast of Arabia and Persia until they reached India

South Asian Stone Age

The South Asian Stone Age covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in South Asia. Evidence for the most ancient anatomically modern Homo sapiens in South Asia has been found in the cave sites of Batadomba lena and Beli lena in Sri Lanka.In Mehrgarh, in what is today western...

. One of the groups that went north (east Asians were the second group) ventured inland and radiated to Europe, eventually displacing the Neanderthals. They also radiated to India from Central Asia. The former group headed along the southeast coast of Asia, reaching Australia between 55,000 and 30,000 years ago, with most estimates placing it about 46,000 to 41,000 years ago.

During that time, sea level was much lower and most of Maritime Southeast Asia

Maritime Southeast Asia

Maritime Southeast Asia refers to the maritime region of Southeast Asia as opposed to mainland Southeast Asia and includes the modern countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, East Timor and Singapore....

was one land mass known as the lost continent of Sunda

Sunda Shelf

Geologically, the Sunda Shelf is a south east extension of the continental shelf of Southeast Asia. Major landmasses on the shelf include the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Madura, Bali and their surrounding smaller islands. It covers an area of approximately 1.85 million km2...

. The settlers probably continued on the coastal route southeast until they reached the series of strait

Strait

A strait or straits is a narrow, typically navigable channel of water that connects two larger, navigable bodies of water. It most commonly refers to a channel of water that lies between two land masses, but it may also refer to a navigable channel through a body of water that is otherwise not...

s between Sunda and Sahul, the continental land mass that was made up of present-day Australia and New Guinea

New Guinea

New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...

. The widest gaps are on the Weber Line and are at least 90 km wide, indicating that settlers had knowledge of seafaring skills. Archaic humans such as Homo erectus never reached Australia, although they crossed the Lombok gap reaching as far as Flores.

If these dates are correct, Australia was populated up to 10,000 years before Europe. This is possible because humans avoided the colder regions of the North favoring the warmer tropical regions to which they were adapted given their African homeland. Another piece of evidence favoring human occupation in Australia is that beginning about 46,000 years ago, all megafauna

Australian megafauna

Australian megafauna are a number of large animal species in Australia, often defined as species with body mass estimates of greater than 30 kilograms, or equal to or greater than 30% greater body mass than their closest living relatives...

weighing more than 100 kg became extinct. Tim Flannery and others argue new settlers were likely to be responsible for this extinction. Many of the animals may have been accustomed to living without predators and become docile and vulnerable to attack (as occurred later in the Americas).

While some settlers crossed into Australia, others may have continued eastwards along the coast of Sunda eventually turning northeast to China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

and finally reaching Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, leaving a trail of coastal settlements. This coastal migration leaves its trail in the mitochondrial haplogroups descended from haplogroup M

Haplogroup M (mtDNA)

In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup M is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup. An enormous haplogroup spanning all the continents, the macro-haplogroup M, like its sibling N, is a descendant of haplogroup L3....

, and in Y-chromosome

Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups

In human genetics, a Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup is a haplogroup defined by differences in the non-recombining portions of DNA from the Y chromosome ....

haplogroup C

Haplogroup C (Y-DNA)

In human genetics, Haplogroup C is a Y-chromosome haplogroup, defined by UEPs M130/RPS4Y711, M216, P184, P255, and P260, which are all SNP mutations. It is a sibling clade of Haplogroup F, within the more ancient grouping of Haplogroup CF...

. Thereafter, it may have become necessary to venture inland possibly bringing modern humans into contact with archaic humans such as H. erectus. Recent genetic studies suggest that Australia and New Guinea were populated by one single migration from Asia as opposed to several waves. The land bridge connecting New Guinea and Australia became submerged approximately 8,000 years ago, thus isolating the populations of the two land masses.

Europe

Europe is thought to have been colonized by northwest bound migrants from Central Asia and the Middle East. When the first anatomically modern humans

Anatomically modern humans

The term anatomically modern humans in paleoanthropology refers to early individuals of Homo sapiens with an appearance consistent with the range of phenotypes in modern humans....

entered Europe, Neanderthal

Neanderthal

The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...

s were already settled there. Debate exists whether modern human populations interbred with Neanderthal populations, most of the evidence suggesting that it happened to a small degree rather than complete absorption. Populations of modern man and Neanderthal overlapped in various regions such as in Iberian peninsula and in the Middle East and that interbreeding may have contributed Neanderthal genes to palaeolithic and ultimately modern Eurasians and Oceanians.

An important difference between Europe and other parts of the inhabited world was the northern latitude. Archaeological evidence suggests humans, whether Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon, reached sites in Arctic Russia

Mamontovaya Kurya

Mamontovaya Kurya is a Palaeolithic site on the Usa River, Komi Republic, Russia. The site includes stone artifacts, animal bones and a mammoth tusk with human-made marks. Dated to 40,000 years before present, this is the oldest documented evidence of humans at this latitude....

by 40,000 years ago.

Around 20,000 BC, 10,000 years after the Neanderthal extinction, the Last Glacial Maximum

Last Glacial Maximum

The Last Glacial Maximum refers to a period in the Earth's climate history when ice sheets were at their maximum extension, between 26,500 and 19,000–20,000 years ago, marking the peak of the last glacial period. During this time, vast ice sheets covered much of North America, northern Europe and...

took place forcing northern hemisphere inhabitants to migrate to several shelters

Last Glacial Maximum refugia

Last Glacial Maximum refugia were places where people survived during the last glacial period in the northern hemisphere.Sub-Saharan Africa and Australia were not affected by the glaciation and the Americas and New Zealand had no humans at that time...

until the end of this period came. The resulting populations, whether interbred with Neanderthals or not, are then presumed to have resided in those hypothetical refuges during the LGM to ultimately reoccupy Europe where archaic historical populations are considered their descendents. An alternate view is that modern European populations have descended from Neolithic populations in the Middle East that have been well documented in this area. The debate surrounding the origin of Europeans has been worded in terms of cultural diffusion

Cultural diffusion

In cultural anthropology and cultural geography, cultural diffusion, as first conceptualized by Alfred L. Kroeber in his influential 1940 paper Stimulus Diffusion, or trans-cultural diffusion in later reformulations, is the spread of cultural items—such as ideas, styles, religions, technologies,...

versus demic diffusion

Demic diffusion

Demic diffusion is a demographic term referring to a migratory model developed by Cavalli-Sforza, that consists of population diffusion into and across an area previously uninhabited by that group, possibly, but not necessarily, displacing, replacing, or intermixing with a pre-existing population...

. Archeological evidence and genetic evidence strongly support demic diffusion, that a population spread from the Middle East over the last 12,000 years. A scientific genetic concept called the Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor or TMRCA

Most recent common ancestor

In genetics, the most recent common ancestor of any set of organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly descended...

has been used to refute the demic diffusion in favour of cultural diffusion.

Migration of the Cro-Magnons into Europe

Cro-Magnon are considered the first anatomically modern humans in Europe. They entered Eurasia

Eurasia

by the Arabian Peninsula

Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula is a land mass situated north-east of Africa. Also known as Arabia or the Arabian subcontinent, it is the world's largest peninsula and covers 3,237,500 km2...

around 60,000 years ago, with one group rapidly settling coastal areas around the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

and one group migrating north to steppes of Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

.

A mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondrial DNA is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria, structures within eukaryotic cells that convert the chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, adenosine triphosphate...

sequence of two Cro-Magnons from the Paglicci Cave

Paglicci Cave

Paglicci cave is an archeological site situated near Rignano Garganico, Apulia, southern Italy. The cave, discovered in the 1950s, is the most important cave of Gargano.- Description :...

in Italy, dated to 23,000 and 24,000 years old (Paglicci 52 and 12), identified the mtDNA

Mitochondrial DNA

as Haplogroup N

Haplogroup N (mtDNA)

In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup N is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup. An enormous haplogroup spanning many continents, the macro-haplogroup N, like its sibling M, is a descendant of haplogroup L3....

, typical of the latter group. The inland group is the founder of both North- and East Asians (the "Mongol" people), Caucasoids and large sections of the Middle East and North African population. Migration from the Black Sea

Black Sea

The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...

area into Europe started some around 45,000 years ago, probably along the Danubian corridor

Danubian corridor

In paleontology and archeology, the Danubian corridor or Rhine-Danube corridor refers to a route along the valleys of the Danube River and Rhine River of various migration of Eastern cultures from Asia Minor, Aegean, Caspian etc., into the north and northwest Europe....

. By 20,000 years ago, the whole of Europe was settled. The first complete human remains that have been preserved is the mummy Ötzi

Ötzi the Iceman

Ötzi the Iceman , Similaun Man, and Man from Hauslabjoch are modern names for a well-preserved natural mummy of a man who lived about 5,300 years ago. The mummy was found in September 1991 in the Ötztal Alps, near Hauslabjoch on the border between Austria and Italy. The nickname comes from the...

, from 5300 BC, belonging to the K1 MitDNA.

Migration of modern humans into Europe, based on simulation by Currat & Excoffier (2004)

(YBP=Years Before Present)

Competition with Neanderthals

The expansion is thought to have begun 45,000 years ago and may have taken up to 15,000 years for Europe to be colonized.

During this time the Neanderthals were slowly being displaced. Because it took so long for Europe to be occupied, it appears that humans and Neanderthals may have been constantly competing for territory. The Neanderthals were larger and had a more robust or heavy built frame which may suggest that they were physically stronger than modern Homo sapiens. Having lived in Europe for 200,000 years they would have been better adapted to the cold weather. The anatomically modern humans known as the Cro-Magnons, with superior technology and language would eventually completely displace the Neanderthals, whose last refuge was in the Iberian peninsula

Iberian Peninsula

The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...

. After about 30,000 years ago the fossil record of the Neanderthals ends, indicating that they had become extinct. The last known population lived around a cave system on the remote south-facing coast of Gibraltar

Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...

from 30,000 to 24,000 years ago.

Proponents of the multiregional hypothesis have long believed that Europeans were descended from Neanderthal

Neanderthal

The Neanderthal is an extinct member of the Homo genus known from Pleistocene specimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia...

s and not from this homo-sapiens migration. Others believed the Neanderthals had interbred with modern humans. In 1997 researchers managed to extract mitochondrial DNA from a 40,000 year old specimen of a Neanderthal. On comparison with human DNA, its sequences differed significantly, indicating that based on the mitochondrial DNA, modern Europeans are not descended from the Neanderthals and that no interbreeding took place. Some scientists continue to search autosomal DNA for traces of Neanderthal admixture. A few alleles of some autosomal genes such as the H2 allele of the MAPT gene have been suggested, since they were only found among Europeans. In the absence of autosomal DNA from a Neanderthal, the scientists conclude that this hypothesis is speculative.

Some archaeologists suspect that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were not interfertile. This is because Neanderthals and Europeans shared the same habitat for up to 20,000 years, yet no undisputed skeletal fossils have been found that show intermediate properties between the two species.

Current (as of 2010) genetic evidence suggests interbreeding took place with Homo sapiens sapiens (anatomically modern humans) between roughly 80,000 to 50,000 years ago in the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

, resulting in non-ethnic sub-Saharan Africans having no Neanderthal DNA and Caucasians

Caucasian race

The term Caucasian race has been used to denote the general physical type of some or all of the populations of Europe, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Western Asia , Central Asia and South Asia...

and Asians

Asian race

The term Asian race is controversial and may have different meanings depending on the context.You may be looking for:*Asian people*Mongoloid race*Asian American**Race and ethnicity in the United States Census*Asian Canadian...

having between 1% and 4% Neanderthal DNA.

Central and Northern Asia

Mitochondrial haplogroups A

Haplogroup A (mtDNA)

In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup A is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup.-Origin:Haplogroup A is believed to have arisen in Asia some 30,000-50,000 years before present...

, B

Haplogroup B (mtDNA)

In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup B is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup.-Origin:Haplogroup B is believed to have arisen in Asia some 50,000 years before present. Its ancestral haplogroup was Haplogroup R....

and G

Haplogroup G (mtDNA)

In human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup G is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup.-Origin:Haplogroup G is a descendant of haplogroup M. Haplogroup G is divided into subclades G1 and G2a, which represent the Koryaks and Itelmen.-Distribution:...

originated about 50,000 years ago, and bearers subsequently colonized Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

, Korea

Prehistoric Korea

The Prehistoric Korea is the era of human existence in the Korean Peninsula for which written records did not exist. It, however, constitutes the greatest segment of the Korean past and is the major object of study in the disciplines of archaeology, geology, and...

and Japan, by about 35,000 years ago. Parts of these populations migrated to North America.

Americas

The specifics of Paleo-Indians migration to and throughout the American Continent, including the exact dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. The traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000 — 17,000 years ago, when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation

Quaternary glaciation

Quaternary glaciation, also known as the Pleistocene glaciation, the current ice age or simply the ice age, refers to the period of the last few million years in which permanent ice sheets were established in Antarctica and perhaps Greenland, and fluctuating ice sheets have occurred elsewhere...

. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

megafauna

Megafauna

In terrestrial zoology, megafauna are "giant", "very large" or "large" animals. The most common thresholds used are or...

along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide

Laurentide ice sheet

The Laurentide Ice Sheet was a massive sheet of ice that covered hundreds of thousands of square miles, including most of Canada and a large portion of the northern United States, multiple times during Quaternary glacial epochs. It last covered most of northern North America between c. 95,000 and...

and Cordilleran

Cordilleran Ice Sheet

The Cordilleran ice sheet was a major ice sheet that covered, during glacial periods of the Quaternary, a large area of North America. This included the following areas:*Western Montana*The Idaho Panhandle...

ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific Northwest

Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in northwestern North America, bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Definitions of the region vary and there is no commonly agreed upon boundary, even among Pacific Northwesterners. A common concept of the...

coast to South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

as far as Chile. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea level rise of a hundred meters following the last ice age.

Archaeologists contend that Paleo-Indians migration out of Beringia (eastern Alaska

Geography of Alaska

Alaska is one of two U.S. states not bordered by another state; Hawaii the other. Alaska has more ocean coastline than all of the other U.S. states combined. About of Canadian territory separate Alaska from Washington State. Alaska is thus an exclave of the United States that is part of the...

), ranges from 40,000 to around 16,500 years ago. This time range is a hot source of debate and will be for years to come. The few agreements achieved to date are the origin from Central Asia

Central Asia

Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...

, with widespread habitation of America during the end of the last glacial period, or more specifically what is known as the late glacial maximum, around 16,000 — 13,000 years before present.

External links

Atlas of the Human Journey - National Geographic
Journey of Mankind - Genetic Map - Bradshaw Foundation
John Robinson (sculptor)
John Robinson was a British sculptor and co-founder of the . Accounts of his work may be seen at the , the website of the and the June and July 2007, issues of...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Early humans (before Homo sapiens)

Homo sapiens migrations

Within Africa

Exodus from Africa

South Asia and Australia

Europe

Migration of the Cro-Magnons into Europe

Competition with Neanderthals

Central and Northern Asia

Americas

See also

External links