Out of Africa

The Out of Africa theory says that modern humans first appeared in Africa, then migrated out of Africa to other parts of the world.

Since the 1980s this theory has been supported by a study of present-day mitochondrial DNA, and other sequence analysis. There is also evidence based on the physical anthropology of archaic fossil remains. The idea is very well supported. 

There are differing theories on whether there was a single exodus or several. A growing number of researchers also suspect that "long-neglected North Africa" was the original home of the modern humans who first trekked out of the continent.

 Timeline 

 Appearance of modern humans 
Genetic studies and fossil evidence show that archaic Homo sapiens evolved to anatomically modern humans solely in Africa between 200,000Human ancestors hall: Homo Sapiens  – URL retrieved October 13, 2006 and 60,000 years ago.

Members of one branch of Homo sapiens left Africa at some point between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago. Over time these humans replaced earlier populations of the genus Homo, such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus.

 Migrations out of Africa 
By about 90,000 years ago early humans had moved into Eurasia. Earlier species of humans like the Neanderthals had already been living in this area for a long time (at least 500,000 years in western Europe).

By about 42,000 to 44,000 years ago Homo sapiens had reached western Europe, including Britain.Amos, Jonathan 2011. BBC Science News In Europe and western Asia, Homo sapiens replaced the Neanderthals by about 35,000 years ago. (Scientists do not know the details of how this occurred.) At roughly the same time, Homo sapiens arrived in Australia. Their arrival in the Americas was much later, about 15,000 years ago. All these earlier groups of modern man were hunter-gatherers.

 First successful out of Africa migration 
The date of the earliest successful "out of Africa" migration (the earliest migrants with living descendants) has generally been placed at 60,000 years ago based on genetics, but migration out of the continent may have taken place as early as 125,000 years ago according to Arabian archaeological finds of tools in the region.Jones S; Martin R. & Pilbeam D. 1994. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Human Evolution. Cambridge University Press.

 Related pages 
Early human migrations for how archaic as well as modern humans moved out of Africa.

 References 

Category:Human geography
Category:Evolution
Category:Humans