Evolution of the genus Homo took place in Africa. Human evolution, or anthropogenesis, is the part of biological Evolution concerning the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct Species First Homo erectus migrated out of Africa across Eurasia, beginning about 2 million years ago. Homo erectus ( Latin: "upright man" is an extinct species of the genus Homo, believed to have been the first hominin
The expansion of Homo erectus was followed by that of Homo sapiens. Homo erectus ( Latin: "upright man" is an extinct species of the genus Homo, believed to have been the first hominin Human beings, humans or man (Origin 1590–1600 L homō man OL hemō the earthly one (see Humus H. sapiens reached the Near East around 70 millennia ago. B Syria - Belka Woman from Damascus Arab from Baghdadjpg|thumb|Inhabitants of the Near East late nineteenth century The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, From the Near East, these populations spread east to South Asia by 50 millennia ago, and on to Australia by 40 millennia ago (for the first time reached territory never reached by Homo erectus). The South Asian Stone Age covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in the South Asia. The prehistory of Australia is the period between the first human habitation of the Australian continent and the first definitive sighting of Australia by Europeans Europe was reached by Homo sapiens some 40 millennia ago. Homo erectus and Neanderthals settled in Paleolithic Europe long before the emergence of modern humans Homo sapiens. Human beings, humans or man (Origin 1590–1600 L homō man OL hemō the earthly one (see Humus East Asia was reached by 30 millennia ago. The date of migration to North America is disputed; it may have taken place around 30 millennia ago, or only considerably later, around 14 millennia ago. There are several popular models of migration to the New World proposed by the anthropological community The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe Africa
The Pacific islands and the Arctic were not colonized until the 1st millennium CE. Inuit (plural the singular Inuk, means "man" or "person" is a general term for a group of culturally similar Indigenous peoples inhabiting The first millennium is a period of time that commenced on January 1, 1, and ended on December 31, 1000, of the Julian calendar.
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Early Hominids (before homo sapiens)
- Further information: Yuanmou Man and Lantian Man
Early members of the Homo genus, i. Homo is the Genus that includes modern humans and their close relatives e. Homo ergaster, Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis migrated from Africa during the Early Pleistocene, possibly as a result of the operation of the Saharan pump, around 1. Homo ergaster ("working man" is an extinct Hominid Species (or subspecies according to some authorities which lived throughout eastern Homo erectus ( Latin: "upright man" is an extinct species of the genus Homo, believed to have been the first hominin Homo heidelbergensis ("Heidelberg Man" is an Extinct Species of the Genus Homo which may be the direct ancestor Early Pleistocene (also known as Lower Pleistocene, or Calabrian) is a subdivision of the Pleistocene Epoch of the Geologic time scale The Sahara Pump Theory explains how flora and fauna left Africa to penetrate the Middle East and beyond to Europe and Asia 9 million years ago, and dispersed throughout most of the Old World, reaching as far as Southeast Asia. The Old World consists of those parts of Earth known to Europeans Asians and Africans in the 15th century 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 tools of the Oldowan industry. Bipedalism is a form of Terrestrial locomotion where an organism moves by means of its two rear limbs A stone tool is in the most general sense any Tool made of stone. Oldowan (earlier spelled Olduwan or sometimes Oldawan) is an anthropological designation for an industrial complex of Stone tools used by Key sites for this early migration out of Africa are Riwat in Pakistan (1. Riwat ( Rawat Murree) is a Lower Paleolithic site in Punjab, northern Pakistan, providing evidence of Homo occupation that 9 Mya), Ubeidiya in the Levant (1. El-`Ubeidiya ( al-`Ubaydiyya; he אל-עובידיה ar العبيدية some 3 km south of Lake Tiberias, in the Jordan Rift Valley, is an archaeological 5 Mya) and Dmanisi in the Caucasus (1. Dmanisi (დმანისი is a Townlet and Archaeological site in Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia approximately 93 km southwest of the nation’s 7 Mya).
China was populated more than a million years ago,[1] as early as 1. Chinese civilization originated in various city-states along the Yellow River ( valley in the Neolithic era 66 Mya based on stone artefacts found in the Nihewan Basin. [2] Stone tools found at Xiaochangliang site were dated to 1. Xiaochangliang ( is the site of some of the earliest Paleolithic remains in East Asia, located in the Nihewan Basin in Yangyuan County, Hebei 36 million years ago. [3] The archaeological site of Xihoudu (西侯渡) in Shanxi Province is the earliest recorded of use of fire by Homo erectus, which is dated 1. Xihoudu (西侯渡 is an archological site located in the Shanxi Province of China. ( Postal map spelling: Shansi) is a province in the northern part of the People's Republic of China. 27 million years ago. [1]
Southeast Asia (Java) was reached about 1. Java (Jawa is an Island of Indonesia and the site of its Capital city Jakarta. 7 million years ago (Meganthropus). Meganthropus is a name commonly given to several large jaw and skull fragments from Sangiran Central Java.
West Europe was populated since c. Homo erectus and Neanderthals settled in Paleolithic Europe long before the emergence of modern humans Homo sapiens. 1. 2 million ago (Atapuerca). [4]
Bruce Bower has suggested that Homo erectus may have built rafts and sailed oceans, a theory that has raised some controversy. [5]
It should be noted that Homo was not the first Hominid to colonize Asia: Pongo had arrived in Southeast Asia some 15 million years before. Ponginae is a subfamily in the Hominidae family It contains a number of genera, all but one extinct Pongo (orangutans
Homo sapiens migrations
Within Africa
The matrilinear most recent common ancestor shared by all living human beings, dubbed Mitochondrial Eve, probably lived roughly 120-150 millennia ago, the time of Homo sapiens idaltu, probably in East Africa. Matrilineality is a system in which lineage is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors In Genetics, the most recent common ancestor ( MRCA) of any set of Organisms is the most recent individual from which all organisms in the group are directly Mitochondrial Eve ( mt-mrca) is the name given by researchers to the woman who is defined as the Matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA for all currently Homo sapiens idaltu is an extinct Subspecies of Homo sapiens that lived almost 160000 years ago in Pleistocene East Africa is the Easternmost Region of the African Continent. Around 100-80 millennia ago, three main lines of Homo sapiens sapiens diverged, bearers of mitochondrial haplogroup L1 (mtDNA) / A (Y-DNA) colonizing Southern Africa (the ancestors of the Khoisan (Capoid) peoples), bearers of haplogroup L2 (mtDNA) / B (Y-DNA) settling Central and West Africa (the ancestors of Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan speaking peoples and of the Mbuti pygmies), while the bearers of haplogroup L3 remained in East Africa. In Human genetics, Haplogroup L1 is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA haplogroup. In Human genetics, Haplogroup A (M91 is a Y-chromosome haplogroup. Khoisan (increasingly commonly spelled Khoesan or Khoe-San) is the name for two major Ethnic groups of Southern Africa. See also Khoisan The Capoid race (named after the Cape of Good Hope) is regarded by many as a separate race from the Congoid (formerly In Human genetics, Haplogroup L2 is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA haplogroup. In Human genetics, Haplogroup B (M60 is a Y-chromosome Haplogroup. The Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the world's major language families, and Africa 's largest in terms of geographical area number of speakers and number The Nilo-Saharan languages are a hypothetical group of African languages spoken mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers (hence the term The Mbuti people or Bambuti as they are collectively called are one of several indigenous Hunter-gatherer groups in the Congo region of In Human genetics, Haplogroup L3 is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA haplogroup.
Exodus from Africa
According to the Recent African Origin hypothesis a small group of the L3 bearers living in East Africa migrated north east, possibly searching for food or escaping climate changes, crossing the Red Sea about 70 millennia ago, and in the process going on to populate the rest of the world. In Paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is one of two hypotheses of the origin of anatomically modern humans Homo sapiens sapiens The Red Sea is a Salt water Inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. In Paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is one of two hypotheses of the origin of anatomically modern humans Homo sapiens sapiens East Africa is the Easternmost Region of the African Continent. The Red Sea is a Salt water Inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia.
Around 50,000 years ago the world was entering the last ice age and sea levels were much lower as water was trapped in the polar ice caps. Today at the Gate of Grief the Red Sea is about 12 miles (20 kilometres) wide but 50,000 years ago it was much narrower and sea levels were 70 meters lower. Though the straits were never completely closed, there may have been islands in between which could be reached using simple rafts. Shell middens 125,000 years old have been found in Eritrea indicating the diet of early humans was sea food obtained by beachcombing. A midden, also known as a kitchen midden, or a shell heap, is a dump for domestic waste. Eritrea () ( Ge'ez: ኤርትራ ʾErtrā, Arabic: إرتريا Iritriya) officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in Beachcombing or Beachcomber is a term with multiple but related meanings which have evolved over time This is perceived to be evidence that humans may have crossed the Red Sea in search of new food sources available on uninhabited beaches.
South Asia and Australia
- See also: Prehistory of Australia and South Asian Stone Age
Genetic evidence points to migrations out of Africa along two routes. The prehistory of Australia is the period between the first human habitation of the Australian continent and the first definitive sighting of Australia by Europeans The South Asian Stone Age covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in the South Asia. Once in West Asia, the people who took the southern route spread generation by generation around the coast of Arabia and Persia until they reached India The northern group ventured inland [6]and radiated to Europe and would eventually go on to displace the Neanderthals. Southwest Asia or Southwestern Asia (largely overlapping with the Middle East) is the southwestern portion of Asia. The Arabian Peninsula (in Arabic: شبه الجزيرة العربية šibh al-jazīra al-ʻarabīya or جزيرة العرب jazīrat al-ʻarab) The Iranian Plateau, also known as the Persian plateau is a Geological formation in Southwest Asia, Southern The South Asian Stone Age covers the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic periods in the South Asia. They radiated to India from Central Asia as well. The former group headed along the southeast coast of Asia reaching Australia between 70,000 and 30,000 years ago, with most estimates placing it as occurring about 46,000 to 41,000 years ago.
During that time the sea levels were much lower and most of Maritime Southeast Asia was one land mass known as the lost continent of Sunda. The Malay Archipelago is a name given to the Archipelago located between mainland Southeastern Asia ( Indochina) and Australia. Geologically, the Sunda Shelf is an extension of the Continental shelf of Southeast Asia, covered during Interglacials by the South China The settlers would have continued on the coastal route southeast until they reached the channel between Sunda and Sahul, the continental land mass that comprised present day Australia and New Guinea. New Guinea, located just north of Australia, is the world's second largest island, having become separated from the Australian mainland when the area now known This channel is also known as the Wallace Line. The Wallace Line (or Wallace's Line) is a boundary that separates the zoogeographical regions of Asia and Australia. The Channel was 90 km wide, indicating that settlers must have had knowledge of seafaring skills in order to reach Australia. Archaic humans such as Homo erectus never reached Australia.
If these dates are correct it would mean that Australia was populated before Europe by up to 10,000 years. This is possible because humans avoided the colder regions of the North favoring the warmer tropical regions, possibly lacking technology to survive the cold. Another piece of evidence favoring human occupation in Australia is that by 46,000 years ago all large mammals weighing more than 100 kg had suddenly become extinct. The new settlers are the likely suspects of this extinction. Many of the animals may have been accustomed to living without predators and become docile and vulnerable to attack.
While some settlers crossed into Australia others may have continued eastwards along the coast of Sunda eventually turning northeast to China and finally reaching Japan, leaving a trail of coastal settlements. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Japan topics. This coastal migration leaves its trail in the mitochondrial haplogroups descended from haplogroup M, and in Y-chromosome haplogroup C. In Human genetics, a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup is a Haplogroup defined by differences in human mitochondrial DNA. In Human genetics, Haplogroup M is a Human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA haplogroup. In Human genetics, a Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup is a Haplogroup defined by differences in the non- recombining portions of DNA from the In Human genetics, Haplogroup C (RPS4Y=M130 M216 is a Y-chromosome Haplogroup. Thereafter it may have become necessary to venture inland possibly bringing modern humans into contact with archaics such as 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 separating New Guinea and Australia became submerged approximately 8,000 years ago, thus isolating the respective populations of the two land masses[7][8].
Europe
Europe is thought to have been colonized by northwest bound migrants from Central Asia and the Middle East. Homo erectus and Neanderthals settled in Paleolithic Europe long before the emergence of modern humans Homo sapiens. The expansion is thought to have begun 45,000 years ago and may have taken up to 15,000 years for Europe to be fully colonized. [9][10] During this time the Neanderthals were slowly being displaced. Because it took so long for Europe to be overrun, 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, however, with superior technology and language would eventually completely displace the Neanderthals whose last refuge was in the Iberian peninsula. Cro-Magnon ( French) is one of the main types of Homo sapiens of the European Upper Paleolithic, living approximately 40000 to 10000 years The Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe, and includes modern day Spain, Portugal, Andorra 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 from 30,000 to 24,000 years ago. Gibraltar (dʒɨˈbrɒltər is a British overseas territory located near the southernmost tip of the Iberian Peninsula overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar
Multiregionalists have long believed that Europeans were descended from Neanderthals and not from humans from Africa. 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. [11] Some scientists continue to search autosomal DNA for traces of Neanderthal admixture. [12] 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. However in the absence of autosomal DNA from a Neanderthal, the scientists conclude that this hypothesis is entirely speculative[13].
Some archaeologists doubt that Neanderthals and homo sapiens were 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 so far that show intermediate properties between the two hominids[14].
Central and Northern Asia
Mitochondrial haplogrops A, B and G originate some 50 millennia ago, and bearers subsequently colonize Siberia, Korea and Japan, by ca. In Human genetics, Haplogroup A is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA haplogroup. In mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup B is a Human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA haplogroup. In Human mitochondrial genetics, Haplogroup G is a human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA haplogroup. Siberia (Сиби́рь Sibir) is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving This article is about the prehistory of the Korean Peninsula, from circa 500000 BCE through 300 BCE The covers the period from around 100000 to 30000 BC when the earliest Stone tool implements have been found to around 14000 BC at the end of the last Ice-age, which corresponds 35 millennia ago. Parts of these populations migrated further, to North America.
The Americas
The Americas were occupied by Asian people who crossed from Siberia into Alaska. There are several popular models of migration to the New World proposed by the anthropological community The Bering land bridge was a Land bridge roughly 1000 miles (1600 km north to south at its greatest extent which joined present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia Siberia (Сиби́рь Sibir) is the name given to the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving Alaska ( Аляска Alyaska) is a state in the United States of America, in the northwest of the North American continent At the time sea levels were lower and a land bridge of the lost continent of Beringia connected North America to Eurasia. The Bering land bridge was a Land bridge roughly 1000 miles (1600 km north to south at its greatest extent which joined present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia For the superstate in George Orwell 's novel see Nations of Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is likely they used the southern route that may have been much warmer.
There is considerable controversy over when the Americas were first colonized and how many migrations there were. The Americas are the lands of the Western hemisphere or New World, consisting of the Continents of North America and South America Controversial findings in Chile at Monte Verde may indicate a human presence in the Americas by up to 33,000 years ago. Chile, officially the Republic of Chile ( Spanish:) is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow Coastal strip wedged between the Monte Verde is an Archaeological site in south-central Chile, which has been dated to 14500 years before present The oldest indisputable evidence of human presence in the Americas are, however, findings related to the Clovis culture, which have been dated to about 11,000 years ago. The Clovis culture (sometimes referred to as the Llano culture) is a Prehistoric Paleoindian culture that first appears in the archaeological The findings of Clovis points indicate the early settlers hunted large animals. Clovis points are the diagnostic Projectile point associated with the North American Clovis culture. About the same time as the arrival of the clovis culture many large animals such as Mammoths became extinct (as in Australia, possibly due to hunting).
Linguist Joseph Greenberg controversially classified American languages into three major families: Eskimo-Aleut, spoken by the Inuit peoples; Na-Dené, comprising 32 languages spoken only in North America by the Apache, Navajo, and tribes in Alaska and Canada; and Amerind, comprising more than 500 languages spoken in North and South America. Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28 1915 – May 7 2001 was a prominent and controversial linguist and Africanist anthropologist known for his work in both typology Eskimo-Aleut is a Language family native to Greenland, the Canadian Arctic, Alaska, and parts of Siberia. Amerind is a putative higher-level language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg in his 1987 book Language in the Americas. Greenberg suggested that these three languages families represented three separate migrations that filled the Americas in the order they arrived.
References
- ^ a b Rixiang Zhu, Zhisheng An, Richard Pott, Kenneth A. Hoffman (June 2003). "Magnetostratigraphic dating of early humans in China" (PDF). Earth Science Reviews 61: 191–361.
- ^ R. Zhu et al. (2004), New evidence on the earliest human presence at high northern latitudes in northeast Asia.
- ^ Earliest Presence of Humans in Northeast Asia. Smithsonian Institute. Retrieved on 2007-08-04. Year 2007 ( MMVII) was a Common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar in the 21st century. Events 70 - The Destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans.
- ^ "'Fossil find is oldest European yet'", Nature News, 2008-03-26. 2008 ( MMVIII) is the current year in accordance with the Gregorian calendar, a Leap year that started on Tuesday of the Common Events 1026 - Pope John XIX crowns Conrad II as Holy Roman Emperor.
- ^ Bednarik, R. G. , Seafaring in the Pleistocene, Cambridge Archaeological Journal 13 (2003), 41-66. [1]
- ^ "[hhttp://www. biomedcentral. com/1471-2156/2/13/ 'Major genomic mitochondrial lineages delineate early human expansionst']", BMC Genetics 2001, 2001-08-31. Year 2001 ( MMI) was a Common year starting on Monday according to the Gregorian calendar. Events 1056 - Byzantine Empress Theodora becomes ill dying suddenly a few days later without children to succeed the Throne
- ^ Revealing the prehistoric settlement of Australia by Y chromosome and mtDNA analysis
- ^ From DNA Analysis, Clues to a Single Australian Migration
- ^ Modern Humans Did Not Admix with Neanderthals during Their Range Expansion into Europe
- ^ Major genomic mitochondrial lineages delineate early human expansions
- ^ Kate Ravilious. Aborigines, Europeans Share African Roots, DNA Suggests. National Geographic News. May 7, 2007.
- ^ Archaic admixture in the human genome. [Curr Opin Genet Dev. 2006] - PubMed Result
- ^ Evidence suggesting that Homo neanderthalensis contributed the H2 MAPT haplotype to Homo sapiens
- ^ Extinct Hominids page 207-209ISBN 0813339189
See also
It is theorized that pre-historical migration of human populations began with the movement of Homo erectus out of Africa across Eurasia The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe AfricaDapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic