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A Single Migration From Africa Populated the World, Studies Finds

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entremet

entremet

Member
It wasn't phases of homo sapiens but just one huge wave.

Pretty interesting finding for our species's natural history.

Also, we leave Africa? Climate models show it may have been a rainfall issue, which affected available food and thus our ancestors went looking for food.

Food, making the world go around since the dawn of humanity.

Modern humans evolved in Africa roughly 200,000 years ago. But how did our species go on to populate the rest of the globe?

The question, one of the biggest in studies of human evolution, has intrigued scientists for decades. In a series of extraordinary genetic analyses published on Wednesday, researchers believe they have found an answer.

In the journal Nature, three separate teams of geneticists survey DNA collected from cultures around the globe, many for the first time, and conclude that all non-Africans today trace their ancestry to a single population emerging from Africa between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago.

“I think all three studies are basically saying the same thing,” said Joshua M. Akey of the University of Washington, who wrote a commentary accompanying the new work. “We know there were multiple dispersals out of Africa, but we can trace our ancestry back to a single one.”
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Early studies of bits of DNA also supported this idea. All non-Africans are closely related to one another, geneticists found, and they all branch from a family tree rooted in Africa.

Yet there are also clues that at least some modern humans may have departed Africa well before 50,000 years ago, perhaps part of an earlier wave of migration.

In Israel, for example, researchers found a few distinctively modern human skeletons that are between 120,000 and 90,000 years old. In Saudi Arabia and India, sophisticated tools date back as far as 100,000 years.

Last October, Chinese scientists reported finding teeth belonging to Homo sapiens that are at least 80,000 years old and perhaps as old as 120,000 years.
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Full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/22/science/ancient-dna-human-history.html?_r=0
 
M

MisterShine

Member
This has been a major theory for quite some time, I believe. I definitely heard it in my Population Bio class several years ago when I was still in college.

I just find it kind of amusing to think of the last tribe of humans looking around and going "fuck this place we're out" and just walking to Arabia.
 
entremet

entremet

Member
MisterShine said:
This has been a major theory for quite some time, I believe. I definitely heard it in my Population Bio class several years ago when I was still in college.

I just find it kind of amusing to think of the last tribe of humans looking around and going "fuck this place we're out" and just walking to Arabia.
Click to expand...

See my edit for theories why we left lol. It's from the article.
 
J

Jacobi

Banned
I really wish we could look into the past... Early human stuff is so fascinating and everything else as well of course

diamount said:
Africa is really only hospitable near the coasts.
Click to expand...

afr(9ky.gif

10000 years change a lot, I mean at the time of the vikings Iceland and Greenland were green
 
S

Switch Back 9

a lot of my threads involve me fucking up somehow. Perhaps I'm a moron?
Jacobi said:
I really wish we could look into the past... Early human stuff is so fascinating and everything else as well of course



afr(9ky.gif

10000 years change a lot, I mean at the time of the vikings Iceland and Greenland were green
Click to expand...

Iceland would still be green if said vikings didn't chop all the damn trees down.
 
C

Cheesecakebobby

Banned
"Out of Eden" by Stephen Oppenheimer lays out the single exodus theory and the genetic evidence supporting it in understandable terms - recommended.
 
A

Air

Banned
That's definitely a more interesting story than waves of people leaving. Always down to hear more about this stuff.
 
-Plasma Reus-

-Plasma Reus-

Service guarantees member status
It's funny how white european africans* are now kicking out other africans for taking the SAME exodus.

*All Europeans are now white european africans.
 
J

JonnyDBrit

Member
Studying Museum Studies and Archaeology here, this has... sort of been the general idea for a while, but its also worth contextualising a bit.

The biggest thing to understand is that this is still a span of several thousand years, so this is a 'population' in the sense that you have a genetically similar group, slowly migrating and expanding outward, and would not have really been the result of say, a single generation's worth of early humans heading northward and then it all being from them that we (meaning anyone with ancestry outside of sub-Saharan Africa) are descended. More particularly this wouldn't have necessarily been a continual expansion, without some staggering or waves of migration 'catching up' to previous ones. There would still be 'phases', but not so far removed in terms of genetics or time that we would consider them substantially different as groups of people.

Plus there's always the murky issue in delineating what is or isn't a 'modern human', and to what extent they're present in the genepool today. After all, just because we might find 'Homo Sapiens' skeletons in China that are potentially 120,000 years old doesn't actually mean anyone from that population had any input in anyone alive in the present. It's quite easily possible that there were full on earlier waves of migration tens of thousands of years ahead of the one that led to the Eurasian and American populace as we know it, but those just... didn't make it in the long run. We cannot presume total continuity.
 
R

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Jacobi said:
I really wish we could look into the past... Early human stuff is so fascinating and everything else as well of course.
Click to expand...

Think about it. Anatomically modern humans have been walking the Earth for 200,000 years. Recorded human history only covers 6,000 years. That's a shitload of time where humans who generally look and think like us lived out their lives. And not all of them were tiny groups of hunter gatherers.

A while ago I think someone found evidence of a huge-ass battle that took place somewhere in like eastern Germany or something 3,000 years ago where thousands died... except the civilization that fought that battle didn't have writing at the time. It was as big as any major battle in recorded history, but we'll never know who was fighting or why.
 
S

sphagnum

Banned
RedSwirl said:
Think about it. Anatomically modern humans have been walking the Earth for 200,000 years. Recorded human history only covers 6,000 years. That's a shitload of time where humans who generally look and think like us lived out their lives. And not all of them were tiny groups of hunter gatherers.

A while ago I think someone found evidence of a huge-ass battle that took place somewhere in like eastern Germany or something 3,000 years ago where thousands died... except the civilization that fought that battle didn't have writing at the time. It was as big as any major battle in recorded history, but we'll never know who was fighting or why.
Click to expand...

Here you go

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/03/slaughter-bridge-uncovering-colossal-bronze-age-battle
 
N

Nostremitus

Member
Tiamatsword22 said:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beringia
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Nah earliest remains found in America were from Florida dated to before they could have gotten there via the land bridge.


There are theories that the first American inhabitants were pacific islanders that made there way from South East Asia all the way to America over the course of many generations of island hopping and settling the Islands of the Pacific.

Can't find the article I was reading, though... It was a few of years ago.
It was about tracing the genetic heritage of Pacific Islanders.
 
Z

Zepp Twofist

Member
Jacobi said:
10000 years change a lot, I mean at the time of the vikings Iceland and Greenland were green
Click to expand...

Greenland was only temporarily milder for some years when the vikings settled, and the name was mostly to attract additional settlers more than an accurate representation of the island.
 
A

ash_ag

Member
LookAtMeGo said:
How did we get over to North and south America? Boat? Or across the poles or something? Lumeria?
Click to expand...

Tiamatsword22 said:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beringia
Click to expand...

There's a linguistic hypothesis that links the Na-Dené languages of the Navajo and the Apache to the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia (whose only living member is the Ket language). I recommend watching this lecture about the Ket people if you're interesting in the topic, especially its linguistic implications. Extremely interesting.
 
P

Pancake Mix

Copied someone else's pancake recipe
Considering most humans are not Africans, that single group made out quite well genetically and got the entire rest of the planet to themselves. Must have been tough to leave home, but the payoff for leaving food pressures was more than worth it.

Sorry for coming back, though. Methinks you didn't miss us, and who could blame you?

Map_of_Africa_in_1939.png
 
P

Pusherman

Member
EleventhHourSuperpower said:
Yeah :(

Spain is Cyan, Belgium is orange, and Portugal is Brown. German colonies had been given to other countries by this point (1939).

Contrary to popular belief, Ethiopia was occupied by Italy at this time (1936-1941) and a colony.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_East_Africa
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I would consider that more of an occupation akin to the occupation of France during the Second World War. I'd only really consider Eritrea, which had been a part of the Ethiopian Empire, an actual colony of Italy.
 
P

Pancake Mix

Copied someone else's pancake recipe
Pusherman said:
I would consider that more of an occupation akin to the occupation of France during the Second World War. I'd only really consider Eritrea, which had been a part of the Ethiopian Empire, an actual colony of Italy.
Click to expand...

Non-Vichy France in particular was entirely under German military occupation and shows up in plenty of maps as Nazi territory, so it makes sense for Ethiopia to appear as Italian.

The difference is that Ethiopia was officially structured as a colony.

Anyways, don't forget Italian North Africa (Libya) and Italian Somaliland.
 
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