Dispersal throughout Africa Homo sapiens are believed to have emerged in Africa about 300,000 years ago, based in part on
thermoluminescence dating of artifacts and remains from
Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, published in 2017. The
Florisbad Skull from Florisbad, South Africa, dated to about 259,000 years ago, has also been classified as early
Homo sapiens. Previously, the
Omo remains, excavated between 1967 and 1974 in
Omo National Park,
Ethiopia, and dated to 200,000 years ago, were long held to be the oldest known fossils of
Homo sapiens. In September 2019, scientists reported the computerized determination, based on 260
CT scans, of a virtual
skull shape of the last common human ancestor to anatomically modern humans, representative of the earliest modern humans, and suggested that modern humans arose between 260,000 and 350,000 years ago through a merging of populations in
East and
South Africa. In July 2019, anthropologists reported the discovery of 210,000 year old remains of a
H. sapiens and 170,000 year old remains of a
H. neanderthalensis in
Apidima Cave in southern
Greece, more than 150,000 years older than previous
H. sapiens finds in Europe. Early modern humans expanded to Western Eurasia and Central, Western and Southern Africa from the time of their emergence. While
early expansions to Eurasia appear not to have persisted, Wet forest environments were not a major ecological barrier for
Homo sapiens as early as around 150,000 years ago. The situation in
West Africa is difficult to interpret due to a scarcity of fossil evidence.
Homo sapiens seems to have reached the western
Sahelian zone by 130,000 years ago, while tropical West African sites associated with
H. sapiens are known only from after 130,000 years ago. Unlike elsewhere in Africa, archaic
Middle Stone Age sites appear to persist until very late, down to the Holocene boundary (12,000 years ago), pointing to the possibility of late survival of
archaic humans, and late
hybridization with
H. sapiens in West Africa.
Early northern Africa dispersal Populations of
Homo sapiens migrated to the Levant and to Europe between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago, and possibly in earlier waves as early as 185,000 years ago. A fragment of a jawbone with eight teeth found at
Misliya Cave has been dated to around 185,000 years ago. Layers dating from between 250,000 and 140,000 years ago in the same cave contained tools of the
Levallois type which could put the date of the first migration even earlier if the tools can be associated with the modern human jawbone finds. These early migrations do not appear to have led to lasting colonisation and receded by about 80,000 years ago.) as early as 125,000 years ago, but would have died out without leaving a trace in the genome of contemporary humans. and settling in places like the present-day United Arab Emirates (125,000 years ago) and Oman (106,000 years ago), and possibly reaching the Indian Subcontinent (
Jwalapuram: 75,000 years ago.) Although no human remains have yet been found in these three places, the apparent similarities between the stone tools found at
Jebel Faya, those from Jwalapuram and some from Africa suggest that their creators were all modern humans. These findings might give some support to the claim that modern humans from Africa arrived at southern China about 100,000 years ago (
Zhiren Cave,
Zhirendong,
Chongzuo City: 100,000 years ago; and the
Liujiang hominid (
Liujiang County): controversially dated at 139,000–111,000 years ago ). Dating results of the
Lunadong (
Bubing Basin,
Guangxi,
southern China) teeth, which include a right upper second molar and a left lower second molar, indicate that the molars may be as old as 126,000 years. Since these previous exits from Africa did not leave traces in the results of genetic analyses based on the Y chromosome and on MtDNA, it seems that those modern humans did not survive in large numbers and were assimilated by our major antecessors. An explanation for their extinction (or small genetic imprint) may be the
Toba eruption (74,000 years ago), though some argue it scarcely affected human population.
Coastal migration , following the
Southern Dispersal paradigm. The so-called "
recent dispersal" of modern humans took place about 70–50,000 years ago. It is this migration wave that led to the lasting spread of modern humans throughout the world. A small group from a population in East Africa, bearing
mitochondrial haplogroup L3 and numbering possibly fewer than 1,000 individuals, crossed the
Red Sea strait at
Bab-el-Mandeb, to what is now
Yemen, after around 75,000 years ago. A recent review has also shown support for the northern route through the
Sinai Peninsula and the
Levant. with Denisovan DNA making 0.2% of mainland Asian and Native American DNA.
Nearby Oceania Migrations continued along the Asian coast to Southeast Asia and Oceania, colonising
Australia by around 65,000–50,000 years ago. By reaching Australia,
H. sapiens for the first time expanded its habitat beyond that of
H. erectus. Denisovan ancestry is shared by
Melanesians,
Aboriginal Australians, and smaller scattered groups of people in Southeast Asia, such as the
Mamanwa, a
Negrito people in the
Philippines, suggesting the interbreeding took place in Eastern Asia where the Denisovans lived. Denisovans may have crossed the
Wallace Line, with
Wallacea serving as their last
refugium.
Homo erectus had crossed the Lombok gap reaching as far as Flores, but never made it to Australia. , 20,000 yrs ago and when the sea level was probably more than 110m lower than today. During this time sea level was much lower and most of
Maritime Southeast Asia formed one land mass known as
Sunda. Migration continued Southeast on the
coastal route to the
straits between Sunda and
Sahul, the continental land mass of present-day Australia and
New Guinea. The gaps on the
Weber Line are up to 90 km wide, so the migration to Australia and New Guinea would have required seafaring skills. Migration also continued along the coast eventually turning northeast to
China and finally reaching
Japan before turning inland. This is evidenced by the pattern of
mitochondrial haplogroups descended from
haplogroup M, and in
Y-chromosome haplogroup C. Sequencing of one Aboriginal genome from an old hair sample in
Western Australia revealed that the individual was descended from people who migrated into East Asia between 62,000 and 75,000 years ago. This supports the theory of a single migration into Australia and New Guinea before the arrival of Modern Asians (between 25,000 and 38,000 years ago) and their later migration into North America. This migration is believed to have happened around 50,000 years ago, before Australia and New Guinea were separated by rising sea levels approximately 8,000 years ago. This is supported by a date of 50,000–60,000 years ago for the oldest evidence of settlement in Australia, around 40,000 years ago for the oldest human remains, and the extinction of the
Australian megafauna by humans between 46,000 and 15,000 years ago argued by Tim Flannery, which is similar to what happened in the Americas. The continued use of Stone Age tools in Australia has been much debated.
Dispersal throughout Eurasia and back migrations into the continent, as well as the locations of major ancient human remains and archeological sites (López et al., 2015). The population brought to
South Asia by
coastal migration appears to have remained there for some time, during roughly 60,000 to 50,000 years ago, before spreading further throughout Eurasia. This dispersal of early humans, at the beginning of the
Upper Paleolithic, gave rise to the major population groups of the
Old World and the
Americas. Towards the West, Upper Paleolithic populations associated with mitochondrial haplogroup
R and its derivatives, spread throughout Asia and Europe, with a back-migration of
M1 to North Africa and the Horn of Africa several millennia ago. Presence
in Europe is certain after 40,000 years ago, possibly as early as 43,000 years ago, rapidly replacing the Neanderthal population. Contemporary Europeans have
Neanderthal ancestry, but it seems likely that substantial interbreeding with Neanderthals ceased before 47,000 years ago, i.e. took place before modern humans entered Europe. There is evidence from
mitochondrial DNA that modern humans have passed through at least one
genetic bottleneck, in which genome diversity was drastically reduced.
Henry Harpending has proposed that humans spread from a geographically restricted area about 100,000 years ago, the passage through the geographic bottleneck and then with a dramatic growth amongst geographically dispersed populations about 50,000 years ago, beginning first in Africa and thence spreading elsewhere. Climatological and geological evidence suggests evidence for the bottleneck. The explosion of
Toba, the largest volcanic eruption of the
Quaternary, may have created a 1,000 year cold period, potentially reducing human populations to a few tropical refugia. It has been estimated that as few as 15,000 humans survived. In such circumstances genetic drift and
founder effects may have been maximised. The greater diversity amongst African genomes may reflect the extent of African refugia during the Toba incident. However, a recent review highlights that the single-source hypothesis of non-African populations is less consistent with ancient DNA analysis than multiple sources with genetic mixing across Eurasia.
Neanderthals were present both in the Middle East and in Europe, and the arriving populations of anatomically modern humans (also known as "
Cro-Magnon" or
European early modern humans)
interbred with Neanderthal populations to a limited degree. Populations of modern humans and Neanderthal overlapped in various regions such as the Iberian peninsula and the Middle East. 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 by 40,000 years ago. Cro-Magnon are considered the first anatomically modern humans in Europe. They entered
Eurasia by the
Zagros Mountains (near present-day
Iran and eastern
Turkey) around 50,000 years ago, with one group rapidly settling coastal areas around the
Indian Ocean and another migrating north to the steppes of
Central Asia. Modern human remains dating to 45,000-47,000 have been found in
Germany, while finds of 43,000–45,000 years ago have been discovered in Italy and Britain, as well as in the European Russian Arctic from 40,000 years ago. Humans colonised the environment west of the Urals, hunting reindeer especially, but were faced with adaptive challenges; winter temperatures averaged from with fuel and shelter scarce. They travelled on foot and relied on hunting highly mobile herds for food. These challenges were overcome through technological innovations: tailored clothing from the pelts of fur-bearing animals; construction of shelters with hearths using bones as fuel; and digging "ice cellars" into the permafrost to store meat and bones. However, from recent research it is believed that the ecological crisis resulting from the eruption in c. 38,000 BCE of the super-volcano in the
Phlegrean Fields near Naples, which left much of eastern Europe covered in ash, wiped out both the last Neanderthal and the first Homo Sapiens populations of the early Upper Paleolithic. Modern Europeans of today bear no trace of the genomes of the first Homo Sapiens Europeans, but only of those from after the ecological crisis of 38,000 BCE. Modern humans then repopulated Europe from the east after the eruption and the ice age that took place from 38,000 to 36,000 BCE. A
mitochondrial DNA sequence of two Cro-Magnons from the
Paglicci Cave in Italy, dated to 23,000 and 24,000 years old (Paglicci 52 and 12), identified the
mtDNA as
Haplogroup N, typical of the latter group. The expansion of modern human population is thought to have begun 45,000 years ago, and it may have taken 15,000–20,000 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 had larger brains, and were larger overall, with a more robust or heavily built frame, which suggests 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 widespread trade networks, superior technology and bodies likely better suited to running, would eventually completely displace the Neanderthals, whose last refuge was in the
Iberian Peninsula. Neanderthals disappeared about 40,000 years ago. From the extent of linkage disequilibrium, it was estimated that the last Neanderthal gene flow into early ancestors of Europeans occurred 47,000–65,000 years
BP. In conjunction with archaeological and fossil evidence, interbreeding is thought to have occurred somewhere in Western Eurasia, possibly the Middle East. North African groups share a similar excess of derived alleles with Neanderthals as non-African populations, whereas Sub-Saharan African groups are the only modern human populations with no substantial Neanderthal admixture. The Neanderthal-linked haplotype B006 of the dystrophin gene has also been found among nomadic pastoralist groups in the Sahel and Horn of Africa, who are associated with northern populations. Consequently, the presence of this B006 haplotype on the northern and northeastern perimeter of Sub-Saharan Africa is attributed to gene flow from a non-African point of origin.
East, Southeast and North Asia populations from Siberia were an important genetic contributor to
Ancient Native Americans and
Eastern European Hunter-Gatherers. Neolithic Iranian farmers and
Jōmon people (ancestors of the
Ainu people) also received geneflow from ANE-related populations. "
Tianyuan man", an individual who lived in China c. 40,000 years ago, showed substantial Neanderthal admixture. A 2017 study of the ancient DNA of Tianyuan Man found that the individual is related to modern Asian and Native American populations. A 2013 study found
Neanderthal introgression of 18 genes within the chromosome 3p21.31 region (HYAL region) of East Asians. The introgressive haplotypes were positively selected in only East Asian populations, rising steadily from 45,000 years ago until a sudden increase of growth rate around 5,000 to 3,500 years ago. They occur at very high frequencies among East Asian populations in contrast to other Eurasian populations (e.g. European and South Asian populations). The findings also suggest that this Neanderthal introgression occurred within the ancestral population shared by East Asians and Native Americans. A 2016 study presented an analysis of the population genetics of the
Ainu people of northern Japan as key to the reconstruction of the early peopling of East Asia. The Ainu were found to represent a more basal branch than the modern farming populations of East Asia, suggesting an ancient (pre-Neolithic) connection with northeast Siberians. A 2013 study associated several
phenotypical traits associated with Mongoloids with a single mutation of the
EDAR gene, dated to c. 35,000 years ago. Mitochondrial haplogroups
A,
B and
G originated about 50,000 years ago, and bearers subsequently colonized
Siberia,
Korea and
Japan, by about 35,000 years ago. Parts of these populations migrated to North America during the
Last Glacial Maximum. Indeed, the
Last Glacial Maximum promoted range contractions toward southern regions, followed by posterior range re-expansions toward the north, in North Asia populations that shaped their spatial genetic gradients. A review paper by Melinda A. Yang (in 2022) summarized and concluded that a distinctive "Basal-East Asian population" referred to as
East- and Southeast Asian lineage (ESEA); which is ancestral to modern East Asians,
Southeast Asians,
Polynesians, and
Siberians, originated in
Mainland Southeast Asia at ~50,000BC, and expanded through multiple migration waves southwards and northwards respectively. This ESEA lineage gave rise to various sublineages, and is also ancestral to the
Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers of Southeast Asia and the ~40,000 year old
Tianyuan lineage found in
Northern China, but already differentiated and distinct from
European-related and
Australasian-related lineages, found in other regions of prehistoric Eurasia. The ESEA lineage trifurcated from an earlier East-Eurasian or "eastern non-African" (ENA) meta-population, which also contributed to the formation of Ancient Ancestral South Indians (AASI) as well as to Australasians.
Last Glacial Maximum Eurasia migration based on
matrilineal genetics: Arrival of Central Asian populations to the Beringian
Mammoth steppe c. 25,000 years ago, followed by a "swift peopling of the Americas" c. 15,000 years ago. Around 20,000 years ago, approximately 5,000 years after the Neanderthal extinction, the
Last Glacial Maximum forced northern hemisphere inhabitants to migrate to several
shelters (
refugia) until the end of this period. The resulting populations are presumed to have resided in such refuges during the LGM to ultimately reoccupy Europe, where archaic historical populations are considered their descendants. The composition of European populations was later altered by further migrations, notably the
Neolithic expansion from the Middle East, and still later the
Chalcolithic population movements associated with
Indo-European expansion, as well as admixture with diverse populations from
North Africa. A Paleolithic site on the Yana River, Siberia, at 71°N, lies well above the Arctic Circle and dates to 27,000 radiocarbon years before present, during glacial times. This site shows that people adapted to this harsh, high-latitude, Late Pleistocene environment much earlier than previously thought.
Americas Paleo-Indians originated from
Central Asia, crossing the
Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska. Humans lived throughout the Americas by the end of the
last glacial period, or more specifically what is known as the
late glacial maximum. Details of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the American continent, including the dates and the routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. Conventional estimates have it that humans reached North America at some point between 15,000 and 20,000 years ago. The traditional theory is that these early migrants moved when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the
Quaternary glaciation, Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using
primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific coast to
South America as far as
Chile. Any archaeological evidence of coastal occupation during the last Ice Age would now have been covered by the
sea level rise, up to a hundred metres since then. The recent finding of indigenous
Australasian genetic markers in Amazonia supports that a coastal route and subsequent isolation did occur with some migrants.
Holocene migrations The
Holocene is taken to begin 12,000 years ago, after the end of the
Last Glacial Maximum. During the
Holocene climatic optimum, beginning about 9,000 years ago, human populations which had been geographically confined to
refugia began to migrate. By this time, most parts of the globe had been settled by
H. sapiens; however, large areas that had been covered by
glaciers were now re-populated. This period sees the transition from the
Mesolithic to the
Neolithic stage throughout the
temperate zone. The Neolithic subsequently gives way to the
Bronze Age in
Old World cultures and the gradual emergence of the
historical record in the
Near East and
China beginning around 4,000 years ago. Large-scale migrations of the Mesolithic to Neolithic era are thought to have given rise to the pre-modern distribution of the world's major
language families such as the
Niger-Congo,
Nilo-Saharan,
Afro-Asiatic,
Uralic,
Sino-Tibetan or
Indo-European phyla. The speculative
Nostratic theory postulates the derivation of the major language families of Eurasia (excluding Sino-Tibetan) from a single proto-language spoken at the beginning of the Holocene period.
Eurasia Evidence published in 2014 from genome analysis of ancient human remains suggests that the modern native populations of Europe largely descend from three distinct lineages: "
Western Hunter-Gatherers", derivative of the Cro-Magnon population of Europe,
Early European Farmers introduced to Europe from the Near East during the
Neolithic Revolution and
Ancient North Eurasians who expanded to Europe in the context of the
Indo-European expansion. The Ancient North Eurasian component was introduced to Western Europe by people related to the
Yamnaya culture. Additional ANE ancestry is found in European populations through Paleolithic interactions with
Eastern Hunter-Gatherers.
Sub-Saharan Africa West-Eurasian back-migrations started in the early
Holocene or already earlier in the
Paleolithic period (30-15kya), followed by pre-Neolithic and
Neolithic migration events from the
Middle East, mostly affecting Northern Africa, the Horn of Africa, and wider regions of the Sahel zone and East Africa. phylum is thought to have emerged around 6,000 years ago in West or Central Africa. Its expansion may have been associated with the expansion of Sahel agriculture in the African Neolithic period, following the desiccation of the Sahara in
c. 3900 BCE. The
Bantu expansion has spread the
Bantu languages to Central, Eastern and Southern Africa, partly replacing the
indigenous populations of these regions, including the
African Pygmies,
Hadza people and
San people. Beginning about 3,000 years ago, it reached South Africa about 1,700 years ago. Some evidence (including a 2016 study by Busby et al.) suggests admixture from ancient and recent migrations from
Eurasia into parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Another study (Ramsay et al. 2018) also shows evidence that ancient Eurasians migrated into Africa and that Eurasian admixture in modern Sub-Saharan Africans ranges from 0% to 50%, varying by region and generally higher in the Horn of Africa and parts of the
Sahel zone, and found to a lesser degree in certain parts of Western Africa, and
Southern Africa (excluding recent immigrants).
Indo-Pacific . The first seaborne human migrations were by the
Austronesian peoples originating from
Taiwan known as the "
Austronesian expansion". Using advanced sailing technologies like
catamarans,
outrigger boats, and
crab claw sails, they built the first sea-going ships and rapidly colonized
Island Southeast Asia at around 3000 to 1500 BCE. From the
Philippines and
Eastern Indonesia they colonized
Micronesia by 2200 to 1000 BCE. A branch of the Austronesians reached
Island Melanesia between 1600 and 1000 BCE, establishing the
Lapita culture (named after the archaeological site in Lapita,
New Caledonia, where their characteristic pottery was first discovered). They are the direct ancestors of the modern
Polynesians. They ventured into
Remote Oceania reaching
Vanuatu,
New Caledonia, and
Fiji by 1200 BCE, and
Samoa and
Tonga by around 900 to 800 BCE. This was the furthest extent of the Lapita culture expansion. During a period of around 1,500 years, they gradually lost the technology for pottery (likely due to the lack of clay deposits in the islands), replacing it with carved wooden and bamboo containers. Back-migrations from the Lapita culture also merged back Island Southeast Asia in 1500 BCE, and into Micronesia at around 200 BCE. It was not until 700 CE when they started voyaging further into the Pacific Ocean, when they colonized the
Cook Islands, the
Society Islands, and the
Marquesas. From there, they further colonized
Hawaii by 900 CE,
Rapa Nui by 1000 CE, and
New Zealand by 1200 CE. In the
Indian Ocean, Austronesians from
Borneo also colonized
Madagascar and the
Comoros Islands by around 500 CE. Austronesians remain the dominant ethnolinguistic group of the islands of the Indo-Pacific, and were the first to establish a
maritime trade network reaching as far west as
East Africa and the
Arabian Peninsula. They assimilated earlier
Pleistocene to early
Holocene human overland migrations through
Sundaland like the
Papuans and the
Negritos in Island Southeast Asia.
Caribbean The
Caribbean was one of the last places in the Americas that were settled by humans. The oldest remains are known from the Greater Antilles (Cuba and Hispaniola) dating between 4000 and 3500 BCE, and comparisons between tool-technologies suggest that these peoples moved across the Yucatán Channel from Central America. All evidence suggests that later migrants from 2000 BCE and onwards originated from South America, via the Orinoco region. The descendants of these migrants include the ancestors of the
Taíno and
Kalinago (Island Carib) peoples.
Arctic and expansion of the
Thule people (900 to 1500 CE). The earliest inhabitants of North America's central and eastern Arctic are referred to as the
Arctic small tool tradition (AST) and existed c. 2500 BCE. AST consisted of several
Paleo-Eskimo cultures, including the
Independence cultures and
Pre-Dorset culture. The
Inuit are the descendants of the
Thule culture, which emerged from western Alaska around CE 1000 and
gradually displaced the Dorset culture. ==See also==