Human Migration

Under Construction

Members of the hominid family, Homo Erectus and Homo heidelbergensis that are from 500,000 1.6 million years old have been found in Europe and Asia. There are two theories for for the origin of homo sapien.

Prehistory:

Earliest know ancestor in the bipedal, upright, hominid family (see taxonomy) is Sahelanthropus tchadensis, which lived about 6-7 M years ago in Chad, Africa.

See Fossil Sites in Biology

Pierolapithecus Catalaunicus (13 M B.C.) is discovered in Spain.
It is believed by some to be the link between early humans and the apes
(gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees families.)

Homo Erectus (1.6 M B.C.) is believed to have evolved into a separate species
in Java, Indonesia. Remains are verified in Java and Turkana, Kenya.
1,000,000 B.C. Some people suggest Homo Erectus is differentiated between
Homo Erectus African and Homo Erectus Asian about this period.
Others suggest they evolved from separate species.
900,000 B.C. - Growing evidence suggests Homo Erectus (Ceprano) likely roamed
Italy, Germany, Spain and Britain about this time.
800,000 B.C. Homo Erectus Stone tools are discovered in southern China.
500,000 B.C. Pithecanthropus (Homo Erectus), using the hand-axe, in
Indonesia, China, Africa, and Europe.
400,000 B.C. Homo Neanderthals of Schoningen, Germany are using precisely designed
throwing spears.

270,000 B.C. Homo sapiens (archaic) Analysis of mans Y chromosome suggests
homo sapiens (modern man as opposed to modern homo sapiens) originated about this time.
250,000 B.C. Stone tools are being used in England.
150,000 - There is some circumstantial evidence of migration from Australia to China.
200-50,000 B.C. Evolution of Modern Homo sapiens
59,000 B.C. Some genetic theorists believe modern man emigrated from Africa about this time
and dispersed around the world by 50,000 B.C. based on the X chromosome.
60-40,000 B.C. - Australia
30-23,000 B.C. Cro-Magnon (France)
20-15,000 B.C. N. America The DNA studies suggests America is populated 18,000 to 13,000 B.C.
which is not supported by the hard facts that supports a much earlier population.

1. The fossils from Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia contain a mixture of anatomical features from erectus and habilis. They could arguably be considered to belong either to primitive H. erectus (or H. ergaster), or to a new species, Homo georgicus.

Out of Africa:
As of 2006 there were still two leading contradictory models, around since the early 1980's, that attempt to explain modern human evolution beyond Africa:

The regional continuity (or multiregional evolution) model.
Proposes that modern humans evolved more or less simultaneously in all major regions of the Old World from local archaic Homo sapiens.
The replacement model (Lucy or out of Africa theory)
Proposes that modern humans evolved from archaic Homo sapiens 200,000-150,000 years ago only in Africa and then some of them migrated into the rest of the Old World replacing all of the Neandertals and other late archaic Homo sapiens beginning around 100,000 years ago.
This is the dominant view now.
There are differing theories on whether there was a single exodus or several. A multiple dispersal model involves the Southern Dispersal theory,[68] which has gained support in recent years from genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence. In this theory, there was a coastal dispersal of modern humans from the Horn of Africa around 70,000 years ago. This group helped to populate Southeast Asia and Oceania, explaining the discovery of early human sites in these areas much earlier than those in the Levant. A second wave of humans dispersed across the Sinai peninsula into Asia, resulting in the bulk of human population for Eurasia.