Human Migration from Africa: Exploring Origins, Routes, and Timeline

This essay examines the migration of Homo sapiens from Africa, highlighting the anthropological and archaeological evidence supporting the theory. It traces the timeline of human dispersal, beginning approximately 70,000 to 100,000 years ago, and explores the routes taken to populate Asia, Europe, and other continents. The essay discusses the impact of the Pleistocene ice age, the role of land bridges, and the genetic footprints left by early humans. It also explores the early fossil records and genetic data that support the migration patterns. Furthermore, the essay includes an annotated bibliography of key research papers and studies that provide insights into the debate surrounding the origins and routes of human migration, the influence of climate changes, and the significance of genetic analysis in tracing human movements. The sources cover topics from the African origin of humans to the routes taken out of Africa and the impact of climate.

Running head: MIGRATION OF HUMAN FROM AFRICA
MIGRATION OF HUMAN FROM AFRICA
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Thesis statement
The Homo sapiens were a part of the group called the Hominids and they were the
earliest known human like creatures that are based on the anthropological and archaeological
evidences. It is important to note that the hominids started to diverge from the other primates
from somewhere between the 2.5 to 4 million years ago and it took place in the southern and the
eastern Africa. Although they all had a degree of diversity even they belonged from the same
hominid family, all the Homo sapiens shared the same characteristics of bipedalism or the ability
to walk on the two feet in an upright position (Rito et al., 2013). The migration of the humans
started between the 70 thousand to the 100 thousand years ago and they started to migrate from
the populating parts of the Asia, Europe and the African continent. It has been found that the
early humans have reached the Australian continent form sometime between the 35 thousand to
65 thousand years ago. It has been put forwards by the scientists that after studying the
landmasses and the climate have come to the conclusion that the during the Pleistocene ice age
had created a sort of land bridge that potentially connected the North America and Asia over a
period of 13,000 years ago. This is a widely accepted theory and it has highlighted that the land
bridge has helped the early humans to migrate towards the South and North America (Tierney &
Zander, 2017).
There are sources that have highlighted that the first humans have left Africa some
60,000 years ago and at the same time the early humans also have left genetic footprints that are
still visible today. After mapping the frequency and appearance of the genetic markers within the
modern people it has been found that a clear picture can be mapped that can effectively denote
where the ancient has moved around the world (Shultz & Maslin, 2013). The great migrations
have highlighted that eventually the descendants of a small group of the early humans that have

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inhabited Africa occupied the farthest reaches of the earth. The Homo sapiens first evolved in
Africa and they have spent a majority of the time on Earth. The earliest of the fossils have
explicitly highlighted that the earliest known Homo sapiens have appeared in the fossil record at
the Omo Kibish which is located in Ethiopia around 200 thousand years ago (Hershkovitz et al.,
2018). The paleontological records and the genetic records have highlighted that the early
humans have started to migrate from Africa from around 60,000 to 70,000 years ago. Major
climatic shifts started to occur during this time period and the earth’s climate started to cool
drastically. The sudden cooling of the earth’s atmosphere led to the onset of ice age and this
made the life in Africa unsuitable to live and the genetic evidences suggested that there is sharp
decline in the size of the size of the population. It was even estimated that the population
declined to a mere 10,000. The climate again started to improve once again after the 70,000
years ago and earth came a long way from the near extinction point. The population started to
expand and some of the explorers started to explore and venture out of Africa (Timmermann &
Friedrich, 2016).
Annotated bibliography
López, S., Van Dorp, L., & Hellenthal, G. (2015). Human dispersal out of Africa: a lasting
debate. Evolutionary Bioinformatics, 11, EBO-S33489.
Revealing the first evidences of migrations anatomically of the humans out of the Africa
has incited great amount of interest within the researchers that were belonging from a wide range
of discipline. A wide range of climatic data, archaeological data and fossil data have led to the
framing of many hypotheses. The African origin of the early humans is widely accepted,
however there is a debate regarding the region from where the modern form of the humans rose.
Whether it is north Africa, south or the east. The eastern region is supported by the most due to

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the discovery of the modern human fossil and location is pinpointed in the Ethiopia. The fossil is
called the Omo I from the Kibish region and it was first discovered by the Richard Leakley in the
year 1967 and it dates back to the 190 to 200 kya while the Herto fossil dates back to somewhere
between the 160 to 154 kya.
Pagani, L., Schiffels, S., Gurdasani, D., Danecek, P., Scally, A., Chen, Y., ... & Mekonnen,
E. (2015). Tracing the route of modern humans out of Africa by using 225 human genome
sequences from Ethiopians and Egyptians. The American Journal of Human Genetics,
96(6), 986-991.
The authors conducted an analysis of the Egyptian and Ethiopian whole genome
sequence data identification. It has been identified that the modern Egyptians frequency and the
haplotype frequency closely resemble those of the non-African populations. This highlights that
fact that the African genome component in the Egyptians are not similar to the east and west
African components and this on the other hand supports the continuity of the Egyptians since the
dispersal of the early humans out of Africa. These findings have clearly depicted that the
northern route has been considered as the preferred route to migrate out of Africa. In doing so,
the early humans have resolved the puzzles of having archaeological similarities with the
Neanderthal admixture. Furthermore, the masked Egyptians haplotypes have shown that the they
have marked similarities with the Ethiopian haplotypes and it provided that the Egypt is more
likely the gateway to the rest of the world.
Stringer, C. (2016). Human migration: Climate and the peopling of the world. Nature,
538(7623), 49.

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The dispersal of the migration of the humans out of Africa that later on populated the
entire world. However, the remarkable fact is that the it has been speeded up by the climatic
changes. It is important to mention that the fossil records have suggested that the early
migrations out of Africa and movement of the early humans to the Arabian Peninsula and eastern
Mediterranean occurred between the year of 120 thousand and 90,000 years ago. But further
dispersal did not occur until the 60,000 years ago. Studies used the climatic models and it
explored the palaeoclimatic agents that are based on the human migrations. The simulations are
compared with the availability of the fossil evidences. It was however, important to note that at
that time the Sahara Desert was completely in a vegetated condition that had rivers, lakes and
grasslands and this made migration possible.

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Reference
Hershkovitz, I., Weber, G. W., Quam, R., Duval, M., Grün, R., Kinsley, L., ... & Arsuaga, J. L.
(2018). The earliest modern humans outside Africa. Science, 359(6374), 456-459.
López, S., Van Dorp, L., & Hellenthal, G. (2015). Human dispersal out of Africa: a lasting
debate. Evolutionary Bioinformatics, 11, EBO-S33489.
Pagani, L., Schiffels, S., Gurdasani, D., Danecek, P., Scally, A., Chen, Y., ... & Mekonnen, E.
(2015). Tracing the route of modern humans out of Africa by using 225 human genome
sequences from Ethiopians and Egyptians. The American Journal of Human Genetics,
96(6), 986-991.
Rito, T., Richards, M. B., Fernandes, V., Alshamali, F., Cerny, V., Pereira, L., & Soares, P.
(2013). The first modern human dispersals across Africa. PloS one, 8(11), e80031.
Shultz, S., & Maslin, M. (2013). Early human speciation, brain expansion and dispersal
influenced by African climate pulses. PLoS One, 8(10), e76750.
Stringer, C. (2016). Human migration: Climate and the peopling of the world. Nature,
538(7623), 49.
Tierney, J. E., & Zander, P. D. (2017). A climatic context for the out-of-Africa migration.
Geology, 45(11), 1023-1026.
Timmermann, A., & Friedrich, T. (2016). Late Pleistocene climate drivers of early human
migration. Nature, 538(7623), 92.

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