Early human migrations

{{See also|Early expansions of hominins out of Africa}}

The earliest humans developed out of australopithecine ancestors about 3 million years ago, most likely in the area of the Kenyan Rift Valley, where the oldest known stone tools have been found. Stone tools recently discovered at the Shangchen site in China and dated to 2.12 million years ago are claimed to be the earliest known evidence of hominins outside Africa, surpassing Dmanisi in Georgia by 300,000 years.{{Cite journal|doi=10.1038/s41586-018-0299-4 |pmid=29995848 |title=Hominin occupation of the Chinese Loess Plateau since about 2.1 million years ago |journal=Nature |volume=559 |issue=7715 |pages=608–612 |year=2018 |last1=Zhu |first1=Zhaoyu |last2=Dennell |first2=Robin |last3=Huang |first3=Weiwen |last4=Wu |first4=Yi |last5=Qiu |first5=Shifan |last6=Yang |first6=Shixia |last7=Rao |first7=Zhiguo |last8=Hou |first8=Yamei |last9=Xie |first9=Jiubing |last10=Han |first10=Jiangwei |last11=Ouyang |first11=Tingping |bibcode=2018Natur.559..608Z |s2cid=49670311 }}

{{main|Homo erectus|Oldowan}}

Between 2 and less than a million years ago, Homo spread throughout East Africa and to Southern Africa (Homo ergaster), but not yet to West Africa. Around 1.8 million years ago, Homo erectus migrated out of Africa via the Levantine corridor and Horn of Africa to Eurasia. This migration has been proposed as being related to the operation of the Saharan pump, around 1.9 million years ago.{{Citation needed|date=May 2020}} Homo erectus dispersed throughout most of the Old World, reaching as far as Southeast Asia. Its distribution is traced by the Oldowan lithic industry, by 1.3 million years ago extending as far north as the 40th parallel (Xiaochangliang).

Key sites for this early migration out of Africa are Riwat in Pakistan (~2 Ma?{{Cite book|url= https://www.springer.com/us/book/9789048190355 |title=Out of Africa I: The First Hominin Colonization of Eurasia |publisher=Springer |year=2010 |series=Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology |doi=10.1007/978-90-481-9036-2 |editor1=Fleagle, J.G. |editor2=Shea, J.J. |editor3=Grine, F.E. |editor4=Baden, A.L. |editor5=Leakey, R.E |isbn=978-9048190355 }}), Ubeidiya in the Levant (1.5 Ma) and Dmanisi in the Caucasus (1.81 ± 0.03 Ma, p=0.05{{cite journal |last1=Garcia |first1=T. |last2=Féraud |first2=G. |last3=Falguères |first3=C. |last4=de Lumley |first4=H. |last5=Perrenoud |first5=C. |last6=Lordkipanidze |first6=D. |year=2010 |title=Earliest human remains in Eurasia: New 40Ar/39Ar dating of the Dmanisi hominid-bearing levels, Georgia |journal=Quaternary Geochronology |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=443–451 |doi=10.1016/j.quageo.2009.09.012|bibcode=2010QuGeo...5..443G }}).

China shows evidence of Homo erectus from 2.12 mya in Gongwangling, in Lantian county.Zhu, Zhaoyu, Robin Dennell, Weiwen Huang, Yi Wu, Shifan Qiu, Shixia Yang, Zhiguo Rao, et al. 2018. “Hominin Occupation of the Chinese Loess Plateau since about 2.1 Million Years Ago.” Nature 559 (7715): 608–612. {{doi|10.1038/s41586-018-0299-4}}. Two Homo erectus incisors have been found near Yuanmou, southern China, and are dated to 1.7 mya, and a cranium from Lantian has been dated to 1.63 mya. Artefacts from Majuangou III and Shangshazui in the Nihewan basin, northern China, have been dated to 1.6–1.7 mya.R. Zhu et al. (2004), New evidence on the earliest human presence at high northern latitudes in northeast Asia. The archaeological site of Xihoudu ({{lang|zh-Hant|西侯渡}}) in Shanxi province is the earliest recorded use of fire by Homo erectus, which is dated 1.27 million years ago.{{cite journal|first1=Rixiang |last1=Zhu |first2=Zhisheng |last2=An |first3=Richard |last3=Pott |first4=Kenneth A. |last4=Hoffman |title=Magnetostratigraphic dating of early humans in China |journal=Earth-Science Reviews |volume=61 |date=June 2003 |pages=191–361 |url= http://www.paleomag.net/members/rixiangzhu/Earth-Sci%20Review.pdf |doi=10.1016/S0012-8252(02)00110-1 |issue=3–4 |bibcode=2003ESRv...61..191A |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110724001314/http://www.paleomag.net/members/rixiangzhu/Earth-Sci%20Review.pdf |archive-date=2011-07-24}}

Southeast Asia (Java) was reached about 1.7 million years ago (Meganthropus). Western Europe was first populated around 1.2 million years ago (Atapuerca).{{cite news |url= http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080326/full/news.2008.691.html |title=Fossil find is oldest European yet |date=2008-03-26 |publisher=Nature News |doi=10.1038/news.2008.691 |author=Hopkin M|journal=Nature }}

Robert G. Bednarik has suggested that Homo erectus may have built rafts and sailed oceans, a theory that has raised some controversy.{{cite journal |author=Bednarik RG |title=Seafaring in the Pleistocene |journal=Cambridge Archaeological Journal |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=41–66 |year=2003 |doi=10.1017/S0959774303000039|s2cid=162678917 }}
[http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20031018/bob8.asp ScienceNews summary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080422161538/http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20031018/bob8.asp |date=22 April 2008 }}

{{further|Neanderthal extinction}}

{{further|Clactonian|Micoquien|Mousterian}}

File:Spread and evolution of Denisovans.jpg

File:Range of NeanderthalsAColoured.png (blue), the Near East (orange), Uzbekistan (green), and the Altai region (purple).]]

One million years after its dispersal, H. erectus was diverging into new species. H. erectus is a chronospecies and was never extinct, so its "late survival" is a matter of taxonomic convention. Late forms of H. erectus are thought to have survived until after about 0.5 million ago to 143,000 years ago at the latest,{{refn|group=note|Homo erectus soloensis, found in Java, is considered the latest known specimen of H. erectus. Formerly dated to as late as 50,000 to 40,000 years ago, a 2011 study pushed back the date of the extinction of H. e. soloensis to 143,000 years ago at the latest, more likely before 550,000 years ago.{{cite journal|last1=Indriati |first1=E |author2=Swisher CC III |author3= Lepre C |author4=Quinn RL |author5=Suriyanto RA |year=2011 |title=The Age of the 20 Meter Solo River Terrace, Java, Indonesia and the Survival of Homo erectus in Asia |journal=PLOS ONE |volume=6 |issue=6 |pages=e21562 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0021562 |pmid=21738710 |pmc=3126814 |bibcode=2011PLoSO...621562I|doi-access=free }}}} with derived forms classified as H. antecessor in Europe around 800,000 years ago and H. heidelbergensis in Africa around 600,000 years ago. H. heidelbergensis in its turn spread across East Africa (H. rhodesiensis) and to Eurasia, where it gave rise to Neanderthals and Denisovans.

H. heidelbergensis, Neanderthals and Denisovans expanded north beyond the 50th parallel (Eartham Pit, Boxgrove 500kya, Swanscombe Heritage Park 400kya, Denisova Cave 50 kya). It has been suggested that late Neanderthals may even have reached the boundary of the Arctic, by c. 32,000 years ago, when they were being displaced from their earlier habitats by H. sapiens, based on 2011 excavations at the site of Byzovaya in the Urals (Komi Republic, {{coord|65.02|N|57.42|E|}}).{{cite web |url=http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/05/an_arctic_refuge_for_neanderth.html |first=Ewen |last=Callaway |title=An Arctic refuge for Neanderthals? |date=12 May 2011 |publisher=nature.com |access-date=2019-05-08 |archive-date=28 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190728174347/http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/05/an_arctic_refuge_for_neanderth.html |url-status=dead }}

Other archaic human species are assumed to have spread throughout Africa by this time, although the fossil record is sparse. Their presence is assumed based on traces of admixture with modern humans found in the genome of African populations.{{cite journal|last1=Xu |first1=D. |display-authors=etal |year=2017 |title=Archaic Hominin Introgression in Africa Contributes to Functional Salivary MUC7 Genetic Variation |journal=Molecular Biology and Evolution |volume=34 |issue=10 |pages=2704–2715 |doi=10.1093/molbev/msx206 |pmid=28957509 |pmc=5850612 }}{{Cite journal |last=Callaway |first=E. |title=Hunter-gatherer genomes a trove of genetic diversity |journal=Nature |url= http://www.nature.com/news/hunter-gatherer-genomes-a-trove-of-genetic-diversity-1.11076 |doi=10.1038/nature.2012.11076 |date=26 July 2012|s2cid=87081207 |url-access=subscription }}{{cite journal |last=Lachance |first=J.|author2=Vernot, B. |author3=Elbers, C.C. |author4=Ferwerda, B. |author5=Froment, A. |author6=Bodo, J.M. |title=Evolutionary History and Adaptation from High-Coverage Whole-Genome Sequences of Diverse African Hunter-Gatherers |journal=Cell |date= 2012 |volume=150 |issue=3 |pages=457–469 |doi=10.1016/j.cell.2012.07.009 |display-authors=etal |pmid=22840920 |pmc=3426505}} Homo naledi, discovered in South Africa in 2013 and tentatively dated to about 300,000 years ago, may represent fossil evidence of such an archaic human species.{{Cite journal|url= https://cdn.elifesciences.org/articles/24231/elife-24231-v1.pdf |doi=10.7554/eLife.24231 |pmid=28483040 |pmc=5423772 |title=The age of Homo naledi and associated sediments in the Rising Star Cave, South Africa |journal=eLife |volume=6 |date=2017-05-09 |last1=Dirks |first1=Paul HGM |last2=Roberts |first2=Eric M. |last3=Hilbert-Wolf |first3=Hannah |last4=Kramers |first4=Jan D. |last5=Hawks |first5=John |last6=Dosseto |first6=Anthony |last7=Duval |first7=Mathieu |last8=Elliott |first8=Marina |last9=Evans |first9=Mary |last10=Grün |first10=Rainer |last11=Hellstrom |first11=John |last12=Herries |first12=Andy IR |last13=Joannes-Boyau |first13=Renaud |last14=Makhubela |first14=Tebogo V. |last15=Placzek |first15=Christa J. |last16=Robbins |first16=Jessie |last17=Spandler |first17=Carl |last18=Wiersma |first18=Jelle |last19=Woodhead |first19=Jon |last20=Berger |first20=Lee R. |doi-access=free }}

Neanderthals spread across the Near East and Europe, while Denisovans appear to have spread across Central and East Asia and to Southeast Asia and Oceania. There is evidence that Denisovans interbred with Neanderthals in Central Asia where their habitats overlapped.{{cite journal|last1=Lopez |first1=Saioa |last2=van Dorp |first2=Lucy |last3=Hellenthal |first3=Garrett |title=Human Dispersal Out of Africa: A Lasting Debate |journal=Evolutionary Bioinformatics |volume=11s2 |issue=Suppl 2 |year=2016 |pages=57–68 |issn=1176-9343 |doi=10.4137/EBO.S33489 |pmid=27127403 |pmc=4844272}} Neanderthal evidence has also been found quite late at 33,000 years ago at the 65th latitude of the Byzovaya site in the Ural Mountains. This is far outside of any otherwise known habitat, during a high ice cover period, and perhaps reflects a refugia of near extinction.

{{further|Macro-haplogroup L (mtDNA)|Archaeogenetics of sub-Saharan 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.{{refn|group=note|"Here we report the ages, determined by thermoluminescence dating, of fire-heated flint artefacts obtained from new excavations at the Middle Stone Age site of Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, which are directly associated with newly discovered remains of H. sapiens. A weighted average age places these Middle Stone Age artefacts and fossils at 315±34 thousand years ago. Support is obtained through the recalculated uranium series with electron spin resonance date of 286±32 thousand years ago for a tooth from the Irhoud 3 hominin mandible."{{cite journal|first=David |last=Richter |display-authors=etal |title=The age of the hominin fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, and the origins of the Middle Stone Age |journal=Nature |date=8 June 2017 |volume=546 |issue=7657 |pages=293–296 |doi=10.1038/nature22335 |pmid=28593967 |bibcode=2017Natur.546..293R|s2cid=205255853 }}}}{{cite journal|vauthors=Smith TM, Tafforeau P, Reid DJ, etal |title=Earliest evidence of modern human life history in North African early Homo sapiens |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=104 |issue=15 |pages=6128–6133 |date=April 2007 |pmid=17372199 |pmc=1828706 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0700747104 |bibcode=2007PNAS..104.6128S |doi-access=free }} The Florisbad Skull from Florisbad, South Africa, dated to about 259,000 years ago, has also been classified as early Homo sapiens.{{cite journal |pmid=27298468 |pmc=4920294 |year=2016 |last1=Stringer |first1=C. |title=The origin and evolution of Homo sapiens |journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences |volume=371 |issue=1698 |pages=20150237 |doi=10.1098/rstb.2015.0237}}{{cite news|url= https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/07/oldest-homo-sapiens-bones-ever-found-shake-foundations-of-the-human-story |title=Oldest Homo sapiens bones ever found shake foundations of the human story |last=Sample |first=Ian |work=The Guardian |date=7 June 2017 |access-date=7 June 2017}}{{cite journal |last1=Hublin |first1=Jean-Jacques |last2=Ben-Ncer |first2=Abdelouahed |last3=Bailey |first3=Shara E. |last4=Freidline |first4=Sarah E. |last5=Neubauer |first5=Simon |last6=Skinner |first6=Matthew M. |last7=Bergmann |first7=Inga |last8=Le Cabec |first8=Adeline |last9=Benazzi |first9=Stefano |last10=Harvati |first10=Katerina |last11=Gunz |first11=Philipp |title=New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens |journal=Nature |volume=546 |issue=7657 |year=2017 |pages=289–292 |doi=10.1038/nature22336 |pmid=28593953 |url= http://kar.kent.ac.uk/62267/1/Submission_288356_1_art_file_2637492_j96j1b.pdf |bibcode=2017Natur.546..289H|s2cid=256771372 }}{{cite journal |last1=Scerri|first1=Eleanor M. L.|last2=Thomas|first2=Mark G.|last3=Manica|first3=Andrea|last4=Gunz|first4=Philipp|last5=Stock|first5=Jay T.|last6=Stringer|first6=Chris|last7=Grove|first7=Matt|last8=Groucutt|first8=Huw S.|last9=Timmermann|first9=Axel|author-link9= Axel Timmermann|last10=Rightmire|first10=G. Philip|last11=d’Errico|first11=Francesco | year = 2018| title = Did Our Species Evolve in Subdivided Populations across Africa, and Why Does It Matter? | journal = Trends in Ecology & Evolution | volume = 33 | issue = 8| pages = 582–594 | doi = 10.1016/j.tree.2018.05.005 | pmid = 30007846 | pmc = 6092560 |bibcode=2018TEcoE..33..582S }} 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.{{Cite journal|first1=I. |last2=Brown |last3=Fleagle |first2=H. |first3=G. |journal=Nature |volume=433 |last1=Mcdougall |title=Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia |issue=7027 |pages=733–736 |date=Feb 2005 |issn=0028-0836 |pmid=15716951 |doi=10.1038/nature03258 |bibcode=2005Natur.433..733M |s2cid=1454595 |url=http://doc.rero.ch/record/15078/files/PAL_E2238.pdf }}

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.{{cite news |last=Zimmer |first=Carl |author-link=Carl Zimmer |title=Scientists Find the Skull of Humanity's Ancestor, on a Computer – By comparing fossils and CT scans, researchers say they have reconstructed the skull of the last common forebear of modern humans. |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/science/human-ancestor-skull-computer.html |date=10 September 2019 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2019-12-31}}{{cite journal |last1=Mounier |first1=Aurélien |last2=Lahr |first2=Marta |title=Deciphering African late middle Pleistocene hominin diversity and the origin of our species |journal=Nature Communications |volume=10 |issue=1 |page=3406 |doi=10.1038/s41467-019-11213-w |pmid=31506422 |pmc=6736881 |year=2019 |bibcode=2019NatCo..10.3406M }}

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.{{cite news |last=Zimmer |first=Carl |author-link=Carl Zimmer |title=A Skull Bone Discovered in Greece May Alter the Story of Human Prehistory |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/science/skull-neanderthal-human-europe-greece.html |date=10 July 2019 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2019-12-31 }}{{cite news |author=Staff |title='Oldest remains' outside Africa reset human migration clock |url= https://phys.org/news/2019-07-oldest-africa-reset-human-migration.html |date=10 July 2019 |work=Phys.org |access-date=10 July 2019 }}{{cite journal |last=Delson |first=Eric |title=An early dispersal of modern humans from Africa to Greece – Analysis of two fossils from a Greek cave has shed light on early hominins in Eurasia. One fossil is the earliest known specimen of Homo sapiens found outside Africa; the other is a Neanderthal who lived 40,000 years later. |date=10 July 2019 |journal=Nature |volume=571 |issue=7766 |pages=487–488 |doi=10.1038/d41586-019-02075-9 |pmid=31337897 |doi-access=free }}{{cite journal |last=Harvati |first=Katerina |display-authors=et al. |title=Apidima Cave fossils provide earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in Eurasia |date=10 July 2019 |journal=Nature |volume=571 |issue=7766 |pages=500–504 |doi=10.1038/s41586-019-1376-z |pmid=31292546 |s2cid=195873640 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/6646855 }}

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, expansions to Southern and Central Africa resulted in the deepest temporal divergence in living human populations. Early modern human expansion in sub-Saharan Africa appears to have contributed to the end of late Acheulean (Fauresmith) industries at about 130,000 years ago, although very late coexistence of archaic and early modern humans, until as late as 12,000 years ago, has been argued for West Africa in particular.

The ancestors of the modern Khoi-San expanded to Southern Africa before 150,000 years ago, possibly as early as before 260,000 years ago,{{refn|group=note|Estimated split times given in the source cited (in kya): Human-Neanderthal: 530–690, Deep Human [H. sapiens]: 250–360, NKSP-SKSP: 150–190, Out of Africa (OOA): 70–120.}} so that by the beginning of the MIS 5 "megadrought", 130,000 years ago, there were two ancestral population clusters in Africa, bearers of mt-DNA haplogroup L0 in southern Africa, ancestral to the Khoi-San, and bearers of haplogroup L1-6 in central/eastern Africa, ancestral to everyone else. There was a significant back-migration of bearers of L0 towards eastern Africa between 120 and 75 kya.{{refn|group=note|"By ~130 ka two distinct groups of anatomically modern humans co-existed in Africa: broadly, the ancestors of many modern-day Khoe and San populations in the south and a second central/eastern African group that includes the ancestors of most extant worldwide populations. Early modern human dispersals correlate with climate changes, particularly the tropical African "megadroughts" of MIS 5 (marine isotope stage 5, 135–75 ka) which paradoxically may have facilitated expansions in central and eastern Africa, ultimately triggering the dispersal out of Africa of people carrying haplogroup L3 ~60 ka. Two south to east migrations are discernible within haplogroup L0. One, between 120 and 75 ka, represents the first unambiguous long-range modern human dispersal detected by mtDNA and might have allowed the dispersal of several markers of modernity. A second one, within the last 20 ka signalled by L0d, may have been responsible for the spread of southern click-consonant languages to eastern Africa, contrary to the view that these eastern examples constitute relicts of an ancient, much wider distribution."{{cite journal|last1=Rito |first1=T |last2=Richards |first2=MB |last3=Fernandes |first3=V |last4=Alshamali |first4=F |last5=Cerny |first5=V |last6=Pereira |first6=L |last7=Soares |first7=P |title=The first modern human dispersals across Africa |journal=PLOS ONE |year=2013 |volume=8 |number=11 |page=e80031 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0080031 |pmid=24236171 |pmc=3827445 |bibcode=2013PLoSO...880031R|doi-access=free }}}}

Expansion to Central Africa by the ancestors of the Central African forager populations (African Pygmies) most likely took place before 130,000 years ago, and certainly before 60,000 years ago.{{cite journal|vauthors=Jarvis JP, Scheinfeldt LB, Soi S, Lambert C, Omberg L, Ferwerda B, et al. |year=2012 |title=Patterns of Ancestry, Signatures of Natural Selection, and Genetic Association with Stature in Western African Pygmies |journal=PLOS Genetics |volume=8 |issue=4 |page=e1002641 |doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1002641 |pmid=22570615 |pmc=3343053 |doi-access=free }}{{cite journal|vauthors=López Herráez D, Bauchet M, Tang K, Theunert C, Pugach I, Li J, et al. |year=2009 |title=Genetic Variation and Recent Positive Selection in Worldwide Human Populations: Evidence from Nearly 1 Million SNPs |journal=PLOS ONE |volume=4 |issue=11 |page=e7888 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0007888 |pmid=19924308 |pmc=2775638 |bibcode=2009PLoSO...4.7888L|doi-access=free }}{{Cite journal |title=The Genetic Structure and History of Africans and African Americans |journal=Science |year=2009|pmid=19407144 |doi=10.1126/science.1172257 |vauthors=Tishkoff SA, Reed FA, Friedlaender FR, Ehret C, Ranciaro A, Froment A, Hirbo JB, Awomoyi AA, Bodo JM, Doumbo O, Ibrahim M, Juma AT, Kotze MJ, Lema G, Moore JH, Mortensen H, Nyambo TB, Omar SA, Powell K, Pretorius GS, Smith MW, Thera MA, Wambebe C, Weber JL, Williams SM |volume=324 |issue=5930 |pages=1035–1044 |pmc=2947357|bibcode=2009Sci...324.1035T }} ([https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1172257 Supplementary Data]){{cite journal|vauthors=Quintana-Murci et al. |year=2008 |title=Maternal traces of deep common ancestry and asymmetric gene flow between Pygmy hunter–gatherers and Bantu-speaking farmers |journal=PNAS |volume=105 |issue=5 |pages=1596–1601 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0711467105|pmid=18216239 |pmc=2234190 |bibcode=2008PNAS..105.1596Q |doi-access=free }} [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2234190/figure/F3/ fig. 3].{{refn|group=note|"We studied the branching history of Pygmy hunter–gatherers and agricultural populations from Africa and estimated separation times and gene flow between these populations. The model identified included the early divergence of the ancestors of Pygmy hunter–gatherers and farming populations ~60,000 years ago, followed by a split of the Pygmies' ancestors into the Western and Eastern Pygmy groups – 20,000 years ago."{{Cite journal|vauthors=Patin E, Laval G, Barreiro LB, Salas A, Semino O, Santachiara-Benerecetti S, Kidd KK, Kidd JR, Van der Veen L, Hombert JM, Gessain A, Froment A, Bahuchet S, Heyer E, Quintana-Murci L |title=Inferring the Demographic History of African Farmers and Pygmy Hunter–Gatherers Using a Multilocus Resequencing Data Set |doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1000448 |journal=PLOS Genetics |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=e1000448 |year=2009 |pmid=19360089 |pmc=2661362 |doi-access=free }}}} Wet forest environments were not a major ecological barrier for Homo sapiens as early as around 150,000 years ago.{{Cite journal |last1=Ben Arous |first1=Eslem |last2=Blinkhorn |first2=James A. |last3=Elliott |first3=Sarah |last4=Kiahtipes |first4=Christopher A. |last5=N’zi |first5=Charles D. |last6=Bateman |first6=Mark D. |last7=Duval |first7=Mathieu |last8=Roberts |first8=Patrick |last9=Patalano |first9=Robert |last10=Blackwood |first10=Alexander F. |last11=Niang |first11=Khady |last12=Kouamé |first12=Eugénie Affoua |last13=Lebato |first13=Edith |last14=Hallett |first14=Emily |last15=Cerasoni |first15=Jacopo N. |display-authors=3 |date=2025-02-26 |title=Humans in Africa's wet tropical forests 150 thousand years ago |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08613-y |journal=Nature |language=en |pages=1–6 |doi=10.1038/s41586-025-08613-y |issn=1476-4687|doi-access=free |pmid=40011767 |pmc=11981921 }}{{primary source inline|reason=This is one study, it is limited to evidence from southern Côte d’Ivoire, and is not sufficient to support the assertion here. Secondary sourcing required. |date=February 2025}}{{Cite web |last=Bower |first=Bruce |date=2025-02-26 |title=Humans moved into African rainforests at least 150,000 years ago |url=https://www.sciencenews.org/article/humans-african-rainforests-evolution |access-date=2025-02-28 |website=ScienceNews |language=en-US}}

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.{{cite journal|url= https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-137 |first=Eleanor |last=Scerri |title=The Stone Age Archaeology of West Africa |journal=African History |year=2017 |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.137|isbn=978-0190277734 }}

{{main|Northern Dispersal}}

{{further|Sahara pump theory}}

Populations of Homo sapiens migrated to the Levant and to Europe{{dubious|date=January 2023}} between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago, and possibly in earlier waves as early as 185,000 years ago.{{refn|group=note|Early modern human presence outside of Africa has been proposed to date back to as early as 177,000 years ago.{{cite journal|vauthors=Hershkovitz et al. |title=The earliest modern humans outside Africa |journal=Science |date=26 Jan 2018 |volume=359 |issue=6374 |pages=456–459 |doi=10.1126/science.aap8369|pmid=29371468 |bibcode=2018Sci...359..456H |doi-access=free |hdl=10072/372670 |hdl-access=free }}}}

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.{{Cite news|url= https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180125140923.htm |title=Scientists discover oldest known modern human fossil outside of Africa: Analysis of fossil suggests Homo sapiens left Africa at least 50,000 years earlier than previously thought |work=ScienceDaily |access-date=2018-01-27}}{{Cite news|url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-42817323 |title=Modern humans left Africa much earlier |last=Ghosh |first=Pallab |date=2018 |work=BBC News |access-date=2018-01-27}}

These early migrations do not appear to have led to lasting colonisation and receded by about 80,000 years ago. There is a possibility that this first wave of expansion may have reached China (or even North America{{dubious|date=January 2018}}{{cite journal|journal=Nature |title=A 130,000-year-old archaeological site in southern California, USA |doi=10.1038/nature22065 |pmid=28447646| volume=544 |issue=7651 |pages=479–483 |year=2017 |last1=Holen |first1=Steven R. |bibcode=2017Natur.544..479H|s2cid=205255425 }}) as early as 125,000 years ago, but would have died out without leaving a trace in the genome of contemporary humans.

[[Image:World map of prehistoric human migrations.jpg|thumb|

Fuller projection map showing early human migrations according to mitochondrial population genetics (numbers are millennia before present).]]

There is some evidence that modern humans left Africa at least 125,000 years ago using two different routes: through the Nile Valley, the Sinai Peninsula and the Levant (Qafzeh Cave: 120,000–100,000 years ago); and a second route through the present-day Bab-el-Mandeb Strait on the Red Sea (at that time, with a much lower sea level and narrower extension), crossing to the Arabian Peninsula{{cite news |title=Human footprints dating back 120,000 years found in Saudi Arabia |url=https://phys.org/news/2020-09-ancient-footprints-saudi-arabia-humans.html |access-date=9 October 2020 |work=phys.org |language=en}}{{cite journal |last1=Stewart |first1=Mathew |last2=Clark-Wilson |first2=Richard |last3=Breeze |first3=Paul S. |last4=Janulis |first4=Klint |last5=Candy |first5=Ian |last6=Armitage |first6=Simon J. |last7=Ryves |first7=David B. |last8=Louys |first8=Julien |last9=Duval |first9=Mathieu |last10=Price |first10=Gilbert J. |last11=Cuthbertson |first11=Patrick |last12=Bernal |first12=Marco A. |last13=Drake |first13=Nick A. |last14=Alsharekh |first14=Abdullah M. |last15=Zahrani |first15=Badr |last16=Al-Omari |first16=Abdulaziz |last17=Roberts |first17=Patrick |last18=Groucutt |first18=Huw S. |last19=Petraglia |first19=Michael D. |title=Human footprints provide snapshot of last interglacial ecology in the Arabian interior |journal=Science Advances |date=1 September 2020 |volume=6 |issue=38 |pages=eaba8940 |doi=10.1126/sciadv.aba8940 |pmid=32948582 |pmc=7500939 |bibcode=2020SciA....6.8940S |language=en |issn=2375-2548|doi-access=free }} and settling in places like the present-day United Arab Emirates (125,000 years ago){{cite journal |last1=Lawler |first1=Andrew |year=2011 |title=Did Modern Humans Travel Out of Africa Via Arabia? |journal=Science |volume=331 |issue=6016 |page=387 |doi=10.1126/science.331.6016.387 |bibcode=2011Sci...331..387L |pmid=21273459}} and Oman (106,000 years ago),{{cite web|url= https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111130171049.htm |title=Trail of 'Stone Breadcrumbs' Reveals the Identity of One of the First Human Groups to Leave Africa |publisher=ScienceDaily |date=2011-12-01 |access-date=2019-05-08}} 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.{{cite web|url= https://www.sciencenews.org/article/hints-earlier-human-exit-africa |title=Hints of earlier human exit from Africa |date=2011-01-27 |last=Bower |first=Bruce |publisher=Science News |access-date=2019-05-08}} 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;{{refn|group=note|The authors of Liu (2010) seem to accept that the individual has African recent ascentry, but with Asian archaic human admixture.{{cite journal |last1=Liu |first1=Wu |display-authors=etal |year=2010 |title=Human remains from Zhirendong, South China, and modern human emergence in East Asia |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=107 |issue=45 |pages=19201–19206 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1014386107 |pmid=20974952 |pmc=2984215 |bibcode=2010PNAS..10719201L|doi-access=free }} See also Dennell (2010).{{cite journal | last1 = Dennell | first1 = Robin | year = 2010| title = Two interpretations of the Zhirendong mandible described by Liu and colleagues | journal = Nature | volume = 468 | issue = 7323| pages = 512–513 | doi = 10.1038/468512a | pmid = 21107416 | s2cid = 205060486 }} Brief comments at Modern Humans Emerged Far Earlier Than Previously Thought, Fossils from China Suggest, ScienceDaily (25 October 2010) https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101025172924.htm and {{Cite web|url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/101025-oldest-human-fossil-china-out-of-africa-science/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101027083341/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/10/101025-oldest-human-fossil-china-out-of-africa-science/|url-status=dead|archive-date=2010-10-27|title=Oldest Modern Human Outside of Africa Found|date=27 October 2010}}}} and the Liujiang hominid (Liujiang County): controversially dated at 139,000–111,000 years ago {{cite journal|last1=Shena |first1=Guanjun |display-authors=etal |year=2002 |title=U-Series dating of Liujiang hominid site in Guangxi, Southern China |journal=Journal of Human Evolution |volume=43 |issue=6 |pages=817–829 |doi=10.1006/jhev.2002.0601 |pmid=12473485 |bibcode=2002JHumE..43..817S }}). 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.{{cite web|url= http://www.hawaii.edu/news/article.php?aId=6744 |title=Lunadong fossils support theory of earlier dispersal of modern man |publisher=University of Hawaii at Mānoa |date=2014-09-18 |access-date=2019-05-08}}{{cite journal|url= http://www.nature.com/news/teeth-from-china-reveal-early-human-trek-out-of-africa-1.18566 |title=Teeth from China reveal early human trek out of Africa |journal=Nature |access-date=2015-10-23 |doi=10.1038/nature.2015.18566 |year=2015 |last1=Callaway |first1=Ewen|s2cid=181399291 |doi-access=free }}

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.{{cite journal |last1=Balter |first1=Michael |year=2010 |title=Of Two Minds About Toba's Impact |journal=Science |volume=327 |issue=5970 |pages=1187–1188 |doi=10.1126/science.327.5970.1187-a |pmid=20203021 |bibcode=2010Sci...327.1187B }}

{{main|Southern Dispersal}}

{{further|Recent African origin of modern humans|Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans|Archaic humans in Southeast Asia#Anatomically modern humans in southeast Asia}}

File:Early migrations mercator.svg, following the Southern Dispersal paradigm.]]

The so-called "recent dispersal" of modern humans took place about 70–50,000 years ago.{{cite journal |title=Pleistocene Mitochondrial Genomes Suggest a Single Major Dispersal of Non-Africans and a Late Glacial Population Turnover in Europe |journal=Current Biology |volume=26 |issue=6 |pages=827–833 |year=2016 |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2016.01.037 |pmid=26853362 |vauthors=Posth C, Renaud G, Mittnik M, Drucker DG, Rougier H, Cupillard C, Valentin F, Thevenet C, Furtwängler A, Wißing C, Francken M, Malina M, Bolus M, Lari M, Gigli E, Capecchi G, Crevecoeur I, Beauval C, Flas D, Germonpré M, van der Plicht J, Cottiaux R, Gély B, Ronchitelli A, Wehrberger K, Grigorescu D, Svoboda J, Semal P, Caramelli D, Bocherens H, Harvati K, Conard NJ, Haak W, Powell A, Krause J |bibcode=2016CBio...26..827P |display-authors=6 |hdl=2440/114930 |s2cid=140098861 |url=https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/79384808/Pleistocene_Mitochondrial_Genomes_Suggest_a_Single_Major_Dispersal_of_Non_Africans.pdf |hdl-access=free }}{{cite journal |vauthors=Karmin M, Saag L, Vicente M, Wilson Sayres MA, Järve M, Talas UG, Rootsi S, Ilumäe AM, Mägi R, Mitt M, Pagani L, Puurand T, Faltyskova Z, Clemente F, Cardona A, Metspalu E, Sahakyan H, Yunusbayev B, Hudjashov G, DeGiorgio M, Loogväli EL, Eichstaedt C, Eelmets M, Chaubey G, Tambets K, Litvinov S, Mormina M, Xue Y, Ayub Q, Zoraqi G, Korneliussen TS, Akhatova F, Lachance J, Tishkoff S, Momynaliev K, Ricaut FX, Kusuma P, Razafindrazaka H, Pierron D, Cox MP, Sultana GN, Willerslev R, Muller C, Westaway M, Lambert D, Skaro V, Kovačevic L, Turdikulova S, Dalimova D, Khusainova R, Trofimova N, Akhmetova V, Khidiyatova I, Lichman DV, Isakova J, Pocheshkhova E, Sabitov Z, Barashkov NA, Nymadawa P, Mihailov E, Seng JW, Evseeva I, Migliano AB, Abdullah S, Andriadze G, Primorac D, Atramentova L, Utevska O, Yepiskoposyan L, Marjanovic D, Kushniarevich A, Behar DM, Gilissen C, Vissers L, Veltman JA, Balanovska E, Derenko M, Malyarchuk B, Metspalu A, Fedorova S, Eriksson A, Manica A, Mendez FL, Karafet TM, Veeramah KR, Bradman N, Hammer MF, Osipova LP, Balanovsky O, Khusnutdinova EK, Johnsen K, Remm M, Thomas MG, Tyler-Smith C, Underhill PA, Willerslev E, Nielsen R, Metspalu M, Villems R, Kivisild T |display-authors=6 |title=A recent bottleneck of Y chromosome diversity coincides with a global change in culture |journal=Genome Research |volume=25 |issue=4 |pages=459–466 |date=April 2015 |pmid=25770088 |pmc=4381518 |doi=10.1101/gr.186684.114 }}{{cite journal |vauthors=Haber M, Jones AL, Connel BA, Asan, Arciero E, Huanming Y, Thomas MG, Xue Y, Tyler-Smith C |title=A Rare Deep-Rooting D0 African Y-chromosomal Haplogroup and its Implications for the Expansion of Modern Humans Out of Africa |journal=Genetics |volume=212 |issue=4 |pages=1421–1428 |date=June 2019 |pmid=31196864 |pmc=6707464 |doi=10.1534/genetics.119.302368 }} 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,{{cite journal|year=2003 |last1=Zhivotovsky |title=Features of Evolution and Expansion of Modern Humans, Inferred from Genomewide Microsatellite Markers |pmc=1180270 |volume=72 |issue=5 |pmid=12690579 |last2=Rosenberg |first2=NA |last3=Feldman |first3=MW |pages=1171–1186 |doi=10.1086/375120 |journal=American Journal of Human Genetics |display-authors=etal}}{{cite web |year=2008 |first=Gary |last=Stix |url= https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-migration-history-of-humans/ |title=The Migration History of Humans: DNA Study Traces Human Origins Across the Continents |website=Scientific American |access-date=14 June 2011}} crossed the Red Sea strait at Bab-el-Mandeb, to what is now Yemen, after around 75,000 years ago.{{cite journal|url= https://www.sciencenews.org/article/hints-earlier-human-exit-africa |title=Hints Of Earlier Human Exit From Africa |journal=Science |volume=331 |issue=6016 |pages=453–456 |doi=10.1126/science.1199113 |pmid=21273486 |access-date=2011-05-01 |bibcode=2011Sci...331..453A |last1=Armitage |first1=Simon J. |last2=Jasim |first2=Sabah A. |last3=Marks |first3=Anthony E. |last4=Parker |first4=Adrian G. |last5=Usik |first5=Vitaly I. |last6=Uerpmann |first6=Hans-Peter |year=2011 |s2cid=20296624 |url-access=subscription }} A recent review has also shown support for the northern route through the Sinai Peninsula and the Levant. Their descendants spread along the coastal route around Arabia and Persia to South Asia before 55,000 years ago. Other research supports a migration out of Africa between about 65,000 and 50,000 years ago.{{cite journal |vauthors=Vai S, Sarno S, Lari M, Luiselli D, Manzi G, Gallinaro M, Mataich S, Hübner A, Modi A, Pilli E, Tafuri MA, Caramelli D, di Lernia S |date=March 2019 |title=Ancestral mitochondrial N lineage from the Neolithic 'green' Sahara |journal= Scientific Reports |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=3530 |doi=10.1038/s41598-019-39802-1 |pmc= 6401177 |pmid=30837540 |bibcode=2019NatSR...9.3530V}} The coastal migration between roughly 70,000 and 50,000 years ago is associated with mitochondrial haplogroups M and N, both derivative of L3.

Along the way H. sapiens interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovans,{{cite journal |doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2012.05.002 |volume=47 |title=The dispersal of Homo sapiens across southern Asia: how early, how often, how complex? |journal=Quaternary Science Reviews |pages=15–22 |year=2012 |author-link=Robin Dennell |last1=Dennell |first1=Robin |last2=Petraglia |first2=Michael D. |bibcode=2012QSRv...47...15D }} with Denisovan DNA making 0.2% of mainland Asian and Native American DNA.{{cite journal |author=Prüfer, Kay |title=The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains |journal=Nature |volume=505 |pages=43–49 |year=2013 |doi=10.1038/nature12886 |issue=7481|display-authors=etal |bibcode=2014Natur.505...43P |pmid=24352235 |pmc=4031459}}

{{main|Peopling of Oceania}}

Migrations continued along the Asian coast to Southeast Asia and Oceania, colonising Australia by around 65,000–50,000 years ago.{{cite journal |last1=Bowler |first1=James M. |display-authors=etal |year=2003 |title=New ages for human occupation and climatic change at Lake Mungo, Australia |journal=Nature |volume=421 |issue=6925 |pages=837–840 |doi=10.1038/nature01383 |pmid=12594511 |bibcode=2003Natur.421..837B |s2cid=4365526 }}{{Cite journal|last=Wood|first=Rachel| name-list-style=vanc |date=2017-09-02|title=Comments on the chronology of Madjedbebe|journal=Australian Archaeology|volume=83|issue=3|pages=172–174|doi=10.1080/03122417.2017.1408545|s2cid=148777016|issn=0312-2417}}{{cite journal |vauthors=O'Connell JF, Allen J, Williams MA, Williams AN, Turney CS, Spooner NA, Kamminga J, Brown G, Cooper A |display-authors=6 |title=Homo sapiens first reach Southeast Asia and Sahul? |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=115 |issue=34 |pages=8482–8490 |date=August 2018 |pmid=30082377 |pmc=6112744 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1808385115 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2018PNAS..115.8482O }} 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.{{Citation |url= http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110922/full/news.2011.551.html |title=First Aboriginal genome sequenced |journal=Nature |date=22 September 2011 |first=Ewen |last=Callaway |doi=10.1038/news.2011.551|url-access=subscription }}{{Citation|author=Reich |journal=The American Journal of Human Genetics |volume=89 |issue=4 |pages=516–528 |year=2011| title=Denisova Admixture and the First Modern Human Dispersals into Southeast Asia and Oceania |doi=10.1016/j.ajhg.2011.09.005 |pmid=21944045 |pmc=3188841 |display-authors=etal}}{{Cite web|url= http://www.livescience.com/16171-denisovans-humans-widespread-sex-asia.html |title=Now-Extinct Relative Had Sex with Humans Far and Wide |publisher=LiveScience |date=22 September 2011 |first=Charles |last=Choi}} Denisovans may have crossed the Wallace Line, with Wallacea serving as their last refugium.{{Cite journal|author1=Cooper A. |author2=Stringer C.B. |journal=Science|volume=342 |issue=6156 |pages=321–333 |year=2013| title=Did the Denisovans Cross the Wallace Line |doi=10.1126/science.1244869 |pmid=24136958 |bibcode=2013Sci...342..321C|s2cid=206551893 }}{{cite web|url= http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2013/10/18/3869503.htm |first=Anna |last=Salleh |title=Humans dated ancient Denisovan relatives beyond the Wallace Line |date=18 October 2013 |publisher=ABC Science}} Homo erectus had crossed the Lombok gap reaching as far as Flores, but never made it to Australia.[http://archive.archaeology.org/9805/newsbriefs/mariners.html First Mariners – Archaeology Magazine Archive]. Archive.archaeology.org. Retrieved on 2013-11-16.

File:Map of Sunda and Sahul.svg, 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,{{cite web |url=http://www.fieldmuseum.org/research_collections/zoology/zoo_sites/seamaps/mapindex1.htm |title=Pleistocene Sea Level Maps |publisher=Fieldmuseum.org |access-date=2010-09-23 |archive-date=17 March 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090317193810/http://www.fieldmuseum.org/research_collections/zoology/zoo_sites/seamaps/mapindex1.htm |url-status=dead }} 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.{{cite journal |last1=Rasmussen |first1=M |display-authors=etal |date=Oct 2011 |title=An Aboriginal Australian genome reveals separate human dispersals into Asia |journal=Science |volume=334 |issue=6052 |pages=94–98 |doi=10.1126/science.1211177 |pmid=21940856 |pmc=3991479 |bibcode=2011Sci...334...94R }} 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.{{cite journal |vauthors=Hudjashov G, Kivisild T, Underhill PA |title=Revealing the prehistoric settlement of Australia by Y chromosome and mtDNA analysis |journal=Proc Natl Acad Sci USA |volume=104 |issue=21 |pages=8726–8730 |date=May 2007 |pmid=17496137 |pmc=1885570 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0702928104 |bibcode=2007PNAS..104.8726H |display-authors=etal|doi-access=free }}{{cite news |last=Wade |first=Nicholas |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/science/08abor.html |title=From DNA Analysis, Clues to a Single Australian Migration |location=Australia |work=The New York Times |date=2007-05-08 |access-date=2019-12-31}} This is supported by a date of 50,000–60,000 years ago for the oldest evidence of settlement in Australia,{{cite journal|last1=Clarkson |first1=Chris |last2=Smith |first2=Mike |last3=Marwick |first3=Ben |last4=Fullagar |first4=Richard |last5=Wallis |first5=Lynley A. |last6=Faulkner |first6=Patrick |last7=Manne |first7=Tiina |last8=Hayes |first8=Elspeth |last9=Roberts |first9=Richard G. |last10=Jacobs |first10=Zenobia |last11=Carah |first11=Xavier |last12=Lowe |first12=Kelsey M. |last13=Matthews |first13=Jacqueline |last14=Florin |first14=S. Anna |title=The archaeology, chronology and stratigraphy of Madjedbebe (Malakunanja II): A site in northern Australia with early occupation |journal=Journal of Human Evolution |date=June 2015 |volume=83 |pages=46–64 |doi=10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.03.014 |pmid=25957653 |bibcode=2015JHumE..83...46C |hdl=1773/33254|s2cid=19824757 |url=https://ro.uow.edu.au/smhpapers/3027 |hdl-access=free }} around 40,000 years ago for the oldest human remains, the earliest humans artifacts which are at least 65,000 years old{{cite journal |last1=Clarkson |first1=Chris |last2=Jacobs |first2=Zenobia |last3=Marwick |first3=Ben |last4=Fullagar |first4=Richard |last5=Wallis |first5=Lynley |last6=Smith |first6=Mike |last7=Roberts |first7=Richard G. |last8=Hayes |first8=Elspeth |last9=Lowe |first9=Kelsey |last10=Carah |first10=Xavier |last11=Florin |first11=S. Anna |last12=McNeil |first12=Jessica |last13=Cox |first13=Delyth |last14=Arnold |first14=Lee J. |last15=Hua |first15=Quan |last16=Huntley |first16=Jillian |last17=Brand |first17=Helen E. A. |last18=Manne |first18=Tiina |last19=Fairbairn |first19=Andrew |last20=Shulmeister |first20=James |last21=Lyle |first21=Lindsey |last22=Salinas |first22=Makiah |last23=Page |first23=Mara |last24=Connell |first24=Kate |last25=Park |first25=Gayoung |last26=Norman |first26=Kasih |last27=Murphy |first27=Tessa |last28=Pardoe |first28=Colin |title=Human occupation of northern Australia by 65,000 years ago |journal=Nature |date=19 July 2017 |volume=547 |issue=7663 |pages=306–310 |doi=10.1038/nature22968 |pmid=28726833 |bibcode=2017Natur.547..306C |hdl=2440/107043 |s2cid=205257212 |url= https://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/107043/2/hdl_107043.pdf |hdl-access=free }} and the extinction of the Australian megafauna by humans between 46,000 and 15,000 years ago argued by Tim Flannery,Flannery, Tim (2002), "The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People" (Grove Press) which is similar to what happened in the Americas. The continued use of Stone Age tools in Australia has been much debated.{{cite journal |last=Mellars |first=Paul |title=Going East: New Genetic and Archaeological Perspectives on the Modern Human Colonization of Eurasia |date=11 August 2006 |volume=313 |pages=796–800 |doi=10.1126/science.1128402 |issue=5788 |pmid=16902130 |journal=Science |bibcode=2006Sci...313..796M |s2cid=24631308 }}

{{further|Upper Paleolithic|Mammoth steppe|Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans|Mousterian}}

File:Putative migration waves out of Africa.png 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. {{dubious|date=January 2023}}

Presence in Europe is certain after 40,000 years ago, possibly as early as 43,000 years ago,{{cite news|url= https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/03/science/fossil-teeth-put-humans-in-europe-earlier-than-thought.html |work=The New York Times |title=Fossil Teeth Put Humans in Europe Earlier Than Thought |date=2011-11-02 |access-date=2019-12-31}} 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.{{cite journal|last=Sankararaman |first=S. |author2=Patterson, N. |author3= Li, H. |author4=Pääbo, S. |author5=Reich, D |author6=Akey, J.M. |title=The Date of Interbreeding between Neandertals and Modern Humans |journal=PLOS Genetics |date=2012 |volume=8 |issue=10 |pages=e1002947 |doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1002947 |pmid=23055938 |pmc=3464203|bibcode=2012arXiv1208.2238S |arxiv=1208.2238 |doi-access=free }}

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.{{cite book|last1=Harpending |first1=Henry |last2=Cochran |first2=Gregory |title=The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution |date=2009 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-0465002214 |page=214 |url= https://archive.org/details/10000yearexplosi0000coch |access-date=1 December 2015}} 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.{{cite journal|last1=Ambrose |first1=Stanley |s2cid=33122717 |year=1998 |title=Late Pleistocene human population bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern humans |journal=Journal of Human Evolution |volume=34 |issue=6|pages=623–651 |doi=10.1006/jhev.1998.0219 |pmid=9650103|bibcode=1998JHumE..34..623A }} 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.

{{main|Early European modern humans|Paleolithic Europe|Aurignacian|Gravettian|Art of the Upper Paleolithic}}

{{further|Hominid dispersals in Europe}}

File:18 PanneauDesLions(PartieDroite)BisonsPoursuivisParDesLions.jpg and bison painting found in the Chauvet Cave, France.]]

The recent expansion of anatomically modern humans reached Europe around 40,000 years ago from Central Asia and the Middle East, as a result of cultural adaption to big game hunting of sub-glacial steppe fauna.Oppenheimer, Stephen "Out of Eden: Peopling of the World" (Robinson; New Ed edition (1 March 2012)) 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.{{cite journal|last1=Pavlov |first1=P |first2=JI |last2=Svendsen |first3=S |last3=Indrelid |year=2001 |title=Human presence in the European Arctic nearly 40,000 years ago |journal=Nature |volume=413 |pages=64–67 |doi=10.1038/35092552 |pmid=11544525 |issue=6851 |bibcode=2001Natur.413...64P |s2cid=1986562 }}

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.{{cite web |title=Atlas of human journey: 45–40,000 |work=The genographic project |publisher=National Geographic Society |date=1996–2010 |url= https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/ |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20130114080014/https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/ |url-status= dead |archive-date= 14 January 2013 |access-date=2019-05-08}} Modern human remains dating to 45,000-47,000 have been found in Germany,{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Geoff M. |last2=Ruebens |first2=Karen |last3=Zavala |first3=Elena Irene |last4=Sinet-Mathiot |first4=Virginie |last5=Fewlass |first5=Helen |last6=Pederzani |first6=Sarah |last7=Jaouen |first7=Klervia |last8=Mylopotamitaki |first8=Dorothea |last9=Britton |first9=Kate |last10=Rougier |first10=Hélène |last11=Stahlschmidt |first11=Mareike |last12=Meyer |first12=Matthias |last13=Meller |first13=Harald |last14=Dietl |first14=Holger |last15=Orschiedt |first15=Jörg |last16=Krause |first16=Johannes |last17=Schüler |first17=Tim |last18=McPherron |first18=Shannon P. |last19=Weiss |first19=Marcel |last20=Hublin |first20=Jean-Jacques |last21=Welker |first21=Frido |title=The ecology, subsistence and diet of ~45,000-year-old Homo sapiens at Ilsenhöhle in Ranis, Germany |journal=Nature Ecology & Evolution |date=31 January 2024 |volume=8 |issue=3 |pages=564–577 |doi=10.1038/s41559-023-02303-6 |pmid=38297138 |doi-access=free |pmc=10927544 |bibcode=2024NatEE...8..564S }} while finds of 43,000–45,000 years ago have been discovered in Italy{{Cite journal |doi=10.1038/nature10617 |pmid=22048311 |title=Early dispersal of modern humans in Europe and implications for Neanderthal behaviour |journal=Nature |volume=479 |issue=7374 |pages=525–528 |year=2011 |last1=Benazzi |first1=S. |last2=Douka |first2=K. |last3=Fornai |first3=C. |last4=Bauer |first4=C.C. |last5=Kullmer |first5=O. |last6=Svoboda |first6=J.F. |last7=Pap |first7=I. |last8=Mallegni |first8=F. |last9=Bayle |first9=P. |last10=Coquerelle |first10=M. |last11=Condemi |first11=S. |last12=Ronchitelli |first12=A. |last13=Harvati |first13=K. |last14=Weber |first14=G.W. |bibcode=2011Natur.479..525B |s2cid=205226924 }} and Britain,{{Cite journal |doi=10.1038/nature10484 |pmid=22048314 |title=The earliest evidence for anatomically modern humans in northwestern Europe |journal=Nature |volume=479 |issue=7374 |pages=521–524 |year=2011 |last1=Higham |first1=T. |last2=Compton |first2=T. |last3=Stringer |first3=C. |last4=Jacobi |first4=R. |last5=Shapiro |first5=B. |last6=Trinkaus |first6=E. |last7=Chandler |first7=B. |last8=Gröning |first8=F. |last9=Collins |first9=C. |last10=Hillson |first10=S. |last11=o'Higgins |first11=P. |last12=Fitzgerald |first12=C. |last13=Fagan |first13=M. |bibcode=2011Natur.479..521H |s2cid=4374023 }} as well as in the European Russian Arctic from 40,000 years ago.{{Cite web|url=https://notendur.hi.is/oi/AG-326%202006%20readings/Russian%20Arctic/Svendsen_MAMMOTH2003.pdf|title=Mamontovaya Kurya:an enigmatic, nearly 40000 years old Paleolithic site in the Russian Arctic|access-date=17 June 2015|archive-date=14 August 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150814175918/https://notendur.hi.is/oi/AG-326%202006%20readings/Russian%20Arctic/Svendsen_MAMMOTH2003.pdf|url-status=dead}}

Humans colonised the environment west of the Urals, hunting reindeer especially,{{cite book |last=Hoffecker |first=J. |year=2006 |title=A Prehistory of the North: Human Settlements of the Higher Latitudes |url=https://archive.org/details/prehistorynorthh00hoff |url-access=limited |publisher=Rutgers University Press |location=New Jersey |page=[https://archive.org/details/prehistorynorthh00hoff/page/n119 101]}} but were faced with adaptive challenges; winter temperatures averaged from {{convert|−20|to|−30|°C|°F}} 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.{{cite book |title=Desolate landscapes: Ice-Age settlement in Eastern Europe |first=John F. |last=Hoffecker |location=New Brunswick |publisher=Rutgers University Press |year=2002 |pages=158–162, 217–233 }}

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.Kathryn E. Fitzsimmons et al., The Campanian Ignimbrite Eruption: New Data on Volcanic Ash Dispersal and Its Potential Impact on Human Evolution, 2013 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0065839Giaccio, B. et al., High-precision 14C and 40Ar/39Ar dating of the Campanian Ignimbrite (Y-5) reconciles the time-scales of climatic-cultural processes at 40 ka. Sci Rep 7, 45940 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/srep45940 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.Hajdinjak, M. et al., Initial Upper Palaeolithic humans in Europe had recent Neanderthal ancestry. Nature 592, 253–257 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03335-3 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.Bennett, E.A. et al., Genome sequences of 36,000- to 37,000-year-old modern humans at Buran-Kaya III in Crimea. Nat Ecol Evol (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02211-9

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.{{Cite journal|doi=10.1073/pnas.1130343100 |date=May 2003 |author1=Caramelli, D |author2=Lalueza-Fox, C |author3=Vernesi, C |author4=Lari, M |author5=Casoli, A |author6=Mallegni, F |author7=Chiarelli, B |author8=Dupanloup, I |author9=Bertranpetit, J |author10=Barbujani, G |author11=Bertorelle, G |title=Evidence for a genetic discontinuity between Neandertals and 24,000-year-old anatomically modern Europeans |volume=100 |issue=11 |pages=6593–6597 |issn=0027-8424 |pmid=12743370 |pmc=164492 |journal=PNAS |bibcode=2003PNAS..100.6593C|doi-access=free }}

{{multiple image

| header = Migration of modern humans into Europe, based on simulation by Currat & Excoffier (2004){{cite journal |vauthors=Currat M, Excoffier L |year=2004 |title=Modern Humans Did Not Admix with Neanderthals during Their Range Expansion into Europe |journal=PLOS Biology |volume=2 |issue=12 |page=e421 |doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0020421 |pmc=532389 |pmid=15562317 |doi-access=free }}

(YBP = Years before present)

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| image1 = Cro-Magnon range 37,500 ybp.svg

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| caption1 = Up to 37,500 YBP

| image2 = Cro-Magnon range 35,000 ybp.svg

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| caption2 = Up to 35,000 YBP

| image3 = Cro-Magnon range 32,500 ybp.svg

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| caption3 =Up to 32,500 YBP

| image4 = Cro-Magnon range 30,000 ybp.svg

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| caption4 =Up to 30,000 YBP

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{{further|Neanderthal extinction|Interbreeding between archaic and modern humans}}

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.{{cite journal |vauthors=Maca-Meyer N, González AM, Larruga JM, Flores C, Cabrera VM |title=Major genomic mitochondrial lineages delineate early human expansions |journal=BMC Genet. |volume=2 |issue= 1|page=13 |year=2001 |pmid=11553319 |pmc=55343 |doi=10.1186/1471-2156-2-13 |doi-access=free }}{{cite journal |vauthors=Currat M, Excoffier L |title=Modern humans did not admix with Neanderthals during their range expansion into Europe |journal=PLOS Biology |volume=2 |issue=12 |pages=e421 |date=Dec 2004 |pmid=15562317 |pmc=532389 |doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0020421 |doi-access=free }}

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.Hajdinjak et al. Initial Upper Palaeolithic humans in Europe had recent Neanderthal ancestry. Nature 592, 253–257 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03335-3

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. Studies show a higher Neanderthal admixture in East Asians than in Europeans.{{cite journal |last=Meyer |first=M. |author2=Kircher, M. |author3=Gansauge, M.T. |author4=Li, H. |author5=Racimo, F. |author6=Mallick, S. |title=A High-Coverage Genome Sequence from an Archaic Denisovan Individual |journal=Science |year=2012 |volume=338 |issue=6104 |pages=222–226 |doi=10.1126/science.1224344 |pmid=22936568 |pmc=3617501 |display-authors=etal |bibcode=2012Sci...338..222M}}{{cite journal |last=Wall |first=J.D. |author2=Yang, M.A. |author3=Jay, F. |author4=Kim, S.K. |author5=Durand, E.Y. |author6=Stevison, L.S. |title=Higher Levels of Neanderthal Ancestry in East Asians than in Europeans |journal=Genetics |year=2013 |volume=194 |issue=1 |pages=199–209 |doi=10.1534/genetics.112.148213 |pmid=23410836 |display-authors=etal|pmc=3632468}} 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.{{refn|group=note|"We found that North African populations have a significant excess of derived alleles shared with Neandertals, when compared to sub-Saharan Africans. This excess is similar to that found in non-African humans, a fact that can be interpreted as a sign of Neandertal admixture. Furthermore, the Neandertal's genetic signal is higher in populations with a local, pre-Neolithic North African ancestry. Therefore, the detected ancient admixture is not due to recent Near Eastern or European migrations. Sub-Saharan populations are the only ones not affected by the admixture event with Neandertals."{{cite journal|last=Sánchez-Quinto |first=F. |author2=Botigué, L.R. |author3=Civit, S. |author4=Arenas, C. |author5=Ávila-Arcos, M.C. |author6=Bustamante, C.D. |title=North African Populations Carry the Signature of Admixture with Neandertals |journal=PLOS ONE |year=2012 |volume=7 |issue=10 |pages=e47765 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0047765 |pmid=23082212 |pmc=3474783 |display-authors=etal |bibcode=2012PLoSO...747765S|doi-access=free }}}} 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.{{refn|group=note|"Of 1,420 sub-Saharan chromosomes, only one copy of B006 was observed in Ethiopia, and five in Burkina Faso, one among the Rimaibe and four among the Fulani and Tuareg, nomad-pastoralists known for having contacts with northern populations (supplementary table S1, Supplementary Material online). B006 only occurrence at the northern and northeastern outskirts of sub-Saharan Africa is thus likely to be a result of gene flow from a non-African source."{{cite journal|author=Yotova, Vania |display-authors=etal |title=An X-linked haplotype of Neandertal origin is present among all non-African populations |journal=Molecular Biology and Evolution |date=2011 |volume=28 |issue=7 |pages=1957–1962 |doi=10.1093/molbev/msr024 |pmid=21266489|doi-access=free }}}}

File:ANE network.png 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.{{cite journal |last1=Balter |first1=M. |title=Ancient DNA Links Native Americans With Europe |journal=Science |date=25 October 2013 |volume=342 |issue=6157 |pages=409–410 |doi=10.1126/science.342.6157.409 |pmid=24159019 |bibcode=2013Sci...342..409B |doi-access=free }}]]

"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.{{cite journal | last1 = Yang | display-authors = etal | year = 2017| title = 40,000-Year-Old Individual from Asia Provides Insight into Early Population Structure in Eurasia | journal = Current Biology | volume = 27 | issue = 20| pages = 3202–3208 | doi = 10.1016/j.cub.2017.09.030 | doi-access = free | pmid = 29033327 | pmc = 6592271 | bibcode = 2017CBio...27E3202Y }} 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.{{cite journal|last=Ding |first=Q. |author2=Hu, Y. |author3=Xu, S. |author4=Wang, J. |author5=Jin, L. |title=Neanderthal Introgression at Chromosome 3p21.31 was Under Positive Natural Selection in East Asians |journal=Molecular Biology and Evolution |year=2014 |orig-year=Online 2013 |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=683–695| doi=10.1093/molbev/mst260 |pmid=24336922|doi-access=free }}.

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.{{cite journal | last1 = Jeong | display-authors = etal | date = Jan 2016 | title = Deep History of East Asian Populations Revealed Through Genetic Analysis of the Ainu | journal = Genetics | volume = 202 | issue = 1| pages = 261–272 | doi = 10.1534/genetics.115.178673 | doi-access = free | pmid = 26500257 | pmc = 4701090 }} 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.{{refn|group=note|Traits affected by the mutation are sweat glands, teeth, hair shaft thickness and breast tissue.{{cite journal|last1=Kamberov |first1=Yana G |url= |title=Modeling Recent Human Evolution in Mice by Expression of a Selected EDAR Variant |journal=Cell |volume=152 |issue=4 |pages=691–702 |date=14 February 2013 |doi=10.1016/j.cell.2013.01.016 |pmid=23415220 |pmc=3575602 }}{{cite news|url= https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/science/studying-recent-human-evolution-at-the-genetic-level.html |title=East Asian Physical Traits Linked to 35,000-Year-Old Mutation |work=The New York Times |date=14 February 2013 |last=Wade |first=Nicholas |access-date=2019-12-31}}}}{{refn|group=note|East Asian genetics shows a number of concentrated alleles suggestive of selection pressures. This concerns the genes EDAR, ADH1B, ABCC1, and ALDH2 in particular. The East Asian types of ADH1B are associated with rice domestication and would thus have arisen after the c. 11,000 years ago.{{cite journal|last=Peng |first=Y |title=The ADH1B ARG47His polymorphism in East Asian populations and expansion of rice domestication in history |journal=BMC Evolutionary Biology |volume=10 |pages=15 |number=15 |year=2010 |doi=10.1186/1471-2148-10-15 |pmid=20089146 |pmc=2823730 |doi-access=free |bibcode=2010BMCEE..10...15P }}}}

{{further|Ancient North Eurasians}}

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.{{Cite journal |last1=Branco |first1=Catarina |last2=Ray |first2=Nicolas |last3=Currat |first3=Mathias |last4=Arenas |first4=Miguel |date=2020 |title=Influence of Paleolithic range contraction, admixture and long-distance dispersal on genetic gradients of modern humans in Asia |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mec.15479 |journal=Molecular Ecology |language=en |volume=29 |issue=12 |pages=2150–2159 |doi=10.1111/mec.15479 |pmid=32436243 |bibcode=2020MolEc..29.2150B |hdl=11093/6508 |issn=1365-294X|hdl-access=free }}

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.{{Cite journal |last=Yang |first=Melinda A. |date=2022-01-06 |title=A genetic history of migration, diversification, and admixture in Asia |url=http://www.pivotscipub.com/hpgg/2/1/0001 |journal=Human Population Genetics and Genomics |language=en |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=1–32 |doi=10.47248/hpgg2202010001 |issn=2770-5005 |quote=...In contrast, mainland East and Southeast Asians and other Pacific islanders (e.g., Austronesian speakers) are closely related to each other [9,15,16] and here denoted as belonging to an East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) lineage (Box 2). …the ESEA lineage differentiated into at least three distinct ancestries: Tianyuan ancestry which can be found 40,000–33,000 years ago in northern East Asia, ancestry found today across present-day populations of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Siberia, but whose origins are unknown, and Hòabìnhian ancestry found 8,000-4,000 years ago in Southeast Asia, but whose origins in the Upper Paleolithic are unknown.|doi-access=free }}

{{further|Solutrean|Magdalenian}}

File:Map of gene flow in and out of Beringia.jpg migration based on matrilineal genetics: Arrival of Central Asian populations to the Beringian Mammoth steppe c. 25,000 years ago, followed by a "swift peoplling of the Americas"{{citation needed|date=July 2018}} 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.{{Cite journal |last1=Fregel |first1=Rosa |last2=Méndez |first2=Fernando L. |last3=Bokbot |first3=Youssef |last4=Martín-Socas |first4=Dimas |last5=Camalich-Massieu |first5=María D. |last6=Santana |first6=Jonathan |last7=Morales |first7=Jacob |last8=Ávila-Arcos |first8=María C. |last9=Underhill |first9=Peter A. |last10=Shapiro |first10=Beth |last11=Wojcik |first11=Genevieve |last12=Rasmussen |first12=Morten |last13=Soares |first13=André E. R. |last14=Kapp |first14=Joshua |last15=Sockell |first15=Alexandra |date=2018-06-26 |title=Ancient genomes from North Africa evidence prehistoric migrations to the Maghreb from both the Levant and Europe |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=115 |issue=26 |pages=6774–6779 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1800851115 |doi-access=free |pmc=6042094 |pmid=29895688|bibcode=2018PNAS..115.6774F }} 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.{{cite journal|doi=10.1126/science.1085219 |pmid=14704419 |title=The Yana RHS Site: Humans in the Arctic Before the Last Glacial Maximum |journal=Science |volume=303 |issue=5654 |pages=52–56 |year=2004 |last1=Pitulko |first1=V.V. |last2=Nikolsky |first2=P.A. |last3=Girya |first3=E.Y. |last4=Basilyan |first4=A.E. |last5=Tumskoy |first5=V.E. |last6=Koulakov |first6=S.A. |last7=Astakhov |first7=S.N. |last8=Pavlova |first8=E.Y. |last9=Anisimov |first9=M.A. |bibcode=2004Sci...303...52P|s2cid=206507352 }}

{{Main|Settlement of the Americas|Genetic history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}

Paleo-Indians originated from Central Asia, crossing the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska.{{cite book|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=WAsKm-_zu5sC&pg=PA138 |first1=Spencer |last1=Wells |first2=Mark |last2=Read |title=The Journey of Man – A Genetic Odyssey |publisher=Random House |isbn=978-0812971460 |pages=138–140|year=2002 }} Humans lived throughout the Americas by the end of the last glacial period, or more specifically what is known as the late glacial maximum.{{cite web|url= https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dna-search-first-americans-links-amazon-indigenous-australians-180955976/ |title=A DNA Search for the First Americans Links Amazon Groups to Indigenous Australians |access-date=2019-05-08 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}{{Cite journal|pmc=20009 |title=A single and early migration for the peopling of greater America supported by mitochondrial DNA sequence data |volume=94 |issue=5 |pages=1866–1871 |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |year=1997 |last1=Bonatto |first1=S. L. |last2=Salzano |first2=F. M. |doi=10.1073/pnas.94.5.1866 |pmid=9050871 |bibcode=1997PNAS...94.1866B|doi-access=free }} 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.{{cite web |title=Atlas of the Human Journey-The Genographic Project |publisher=National Geographic Society |date=1996–2008 |url= https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html?era=e003 |access-date=2017-01-27 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110501094643/https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html?era=e003 |archive-date=2011-05-01}}

Conventional estimates have it that humans reached North America at some point between 15,000 and 20,000 years ago.{{cite book | author = Spencer Wells | date = 2006 | title = Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project | publisher = National Geographic Books | pages = 222– | isbn = 978-0792262152 | oclc = 1031966951 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=432Kt0A7J_UC&pg=PA222}}{{cite book | author = John H. Relethford | date = 17 January 2017 | title = 50 Great Myths of Human Evolution: Understanding Misconceptions about Our Origins | publisher = John Wiley & Sons | pages = 192– | isbn = 978-0470673911 | oclc = 1238190784 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=rAjcDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA192}}{{cite book | editor = H. James Birx | date = 10 June 2010 | title = 21st Century Anthropology: A Reference Handbook | publisher = SAGE Publications | pages = | isbn = 978-1452266305 | oclc = 1102541304 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=fsF1AwAAQBAJ&pg=PT50}}{{cite book | author1 = John E Kicza | author2 = Rebecca Horn | date = 3 November 2016 | title = Resilient Cultures: America's Native Peoples Confront European Colonialization 1500–1800 | edition = 2 | publisher = Routledge | pages = | isbn = 978-1315509877 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=b2t4DQAAQBAJ&pg=PT20}} The traditional theory is that these early migrants moved when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation,{{cite web|first1=Drs. William |last1=Fitzhugh |first2=Ives |last2=Goddard |first3=Steve |last3=Ousley |first4=Doug |last4=Owsley |first5=Dennis |last5=Stanford |url= http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI/nmnh/origin.htm |title=Paleoamerican |publisher=Smithsonian Institution Anthropology Outreach Office |access-date=2009-01-15 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090105215737/http://www.si.edu/Encyclopedia_SI//nmnh/origin.htm |archive-date=2009-01-05}} following herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets.{{cite web|url= https://phys.org/news/2009-08-peopling-americas-genetic-ancestry-health.html |title=The peopling of the Americas: Genetic ancestry influences health |work=Scientific American |access-date=2019-05-08}} 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.{{Cite journal |jstor=279189 |title=Alternate Migration Corridors for Early Man in North America |journal=American Antiquity |volume=44 |issue=1 |pages=55–69 |last1=Fladmark |first1=K. R. |year=1979 |doi=10.2307/279189|s2cid=162243347 }} 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.{{cite web|url= http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/01/sea-will-rise-to-levels-of-last-ice-age/ |title=68 Responses to "Sea will rise 'to levels of last Ice Age'" |work=Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University |date=26 January 2009 |access-date=2009-11-17}} The recent finding of indigenous Australasian genetic markers in Amazonia supports that a coastal route and subsequent isolation did occur with some migrants.{{cite web | last=Geggel | first=Laura | title=1st Americans had Indigenous Australian genes | website=livescience.com | date=Apr 2, 2021 | url=https://www.livescience.com/south-american-australian-dna-connection.html | access-date=Dec 10, 2022}}

{{further|Pre-modern human migration|Mesolithic|Linguistic homeland}}

File:Prehistoric migration routes for Y-chromosome Haplogroup N lineage following the retreat of ice sheets after the Last Glacial Maximum (22–18 kya).jpg

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.

{{further|Genetic history of Europe|Neolithic Revolution|Indo-European migrations|Proto-Uralic homeland}}

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.{{cite web|url= http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/09/three-part-ancestry-europeans |title=Three-part ancestry for Europeans |author=Gibbons, Ann |website=Science |publisher=American Association for the Advancement of Science |date=4 September 2014 |access-date=30 October 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20141011034223/http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/09/three-part-ancestry-europeans |archive-date=11 October 2014}} The Ancient North Eurasian component was introduced to Western Europe by people related to the Yamnaya culture.{{cite news |first=Andrew |last=Curry |title=The first Europeans weren't who you might think |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/first-europeans-immigrants-genetic-testing-feature |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319032852/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/first-europeans-immigrants-genetic-testing-feature |url-status=dead |archive-date=19 March 2021 |work=National Geographic |date=August 2019}} Additional ANE ancestry is found in European populations through Paleolithic interactions with Eastern Hunter-Gatherers.{{cite journal |display-authors=4 |last1=Günther |first1=Torsten |last2=Malmström |first2=Helena |last3=Svensson |first3=Emma M. |last4=Omrak |first4=Ayça |last5=Sánchez-Quinto |first5=Federico |last6=Kılınç |first6=Gülşah M. |last7=Krzewińska |first7=Maja |last8=Eriksson |first8=Gunilla |last9=Fraser |first9=Magdalena |last10=Edlund |first10=Hanna |last11=Munters |first11=Arielle R. |last12=Coutinho |first12=Alexandra |last13=Simões |first13=Luciana G. |last14=Vicente |first14=Mário |last15=Sjölander |first15=Anders |last16=Jansen Sellevold |first16=Berit |last17=Jørgensen |first17=Roger |last18=Claes |first18=Peter |last19=Shriver |first19=Mark D. |last20=Valdiosera |first20=Cristina |last21=Netea |first21=Mihai G. |last22=Apel |first22=Jan |last23=Lidén |first23=Kerstin |last24=Skar |first24=Birgitte |last25=Storå |first25=Jan |last26=Götherström |first26=Anders |last27=Jakobsson |first27=Mattias |last28=Barton |first28=Nick |title=Population genomics of Mesolithic Scandinavia: Investigating early postglacial migration routes and high-latitude adaptation |journal=PLOS Biology |date=9 January 2018 |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=e2003703 |doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003703 |pmid=29315301 |pmc=5760011 |doi-access=free }}

{{further|Nilo-Saharan|Niger-Congo}}

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.{{Cite journal |last1=Vicente |first1=Mário |last2=Schlebusch |first2=Carina M |date=2020-06-01 |title=African population history: an ancient DNA perspective |journal=Current Opinion in Genetics & Development |series=Genetics of Human Origin |language=en |volume=62 |pages=8–15 |doi=10.1016/j.gde.2020.05.008 |pmid=32563853 |s2cid=219974966 |issn=0959-437X|doi-access=free }}File:Pre-Neolithic and Neolithic migration events in Africa (excluding Basal-West-Eurasian geneflow during the Paleolithic).jpg The Nilotic peoples are thought to be derived from an earlier undifferentiated Eastern Sudanic unity by the 3rd millennium BCE. The development of the Proto-Nilotes as a group may have been connected with their domestication of livestock. The Eastern Sudanic unity must have been considerably earlier still, perhaps around the 5th millennium BCE (while the proposed Nilo-Saharan unity would date to the Upper Paleolithic about 15kya). The original locus of the early Nilotic speakers was presumably east of the Nile in what is now South Sudan. The Proto-Nilotes of the 3rd millennium BCE were pastoralists, while their neighbors, the Proto-Central Sudanic peoples, were mostly agriculturalists.John Desmond Clark, From Hunters to Farmers: The Causes and Consequences of Food Production in Africa, University of California Press, 1984, p. 31

The Niger-Congo 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.Igor Kopytoff, The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies (1989), 9–10 (cited after [http://amightytree.org/niger-congo-languages-and-history/ Igbo Language Roots and (Pre)-History] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190717224506/http://amightytree.org/niger-congo-languages-and-history/ |date=2019-07-17 }}, A Mighty Tree, 2011). 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.{{Cite journal |first=J. |last=Vansina |title=New Linguistic Evidence and 'The Bantu Expansion' |journal=Journal of African History |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=173–195 |year=1995 |jstor=182309 |doi=10.1017/S0021853700034101|s2cid=162117464 }}

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.{{Cite journal |last1=Busby |first1=George BJ |last2=Band |first2=Gavin |last3=Si Le |first3=Quang |last4=Jallow |first4=Muminatou |last5=Bougama |first5=Edith |last6=Mangano |first6=Valentina D |last7=Amenga-Etego |first7=Lucas N |last8=Enimil |first8=Anthony |last9=Apinjoh |first9=Tobias |title=Admixture into and within sub-Saharan Africa |journal=eLife |volume=5 |doi=10.7554/eLife.15266 |issn=2050-084X |pmc=4915815 |pmid=27324836 |year=2016 |doi-access=free }} 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).{{Cite journal |last1=Ramsay |first1=Michèle |last2=Hazelhurst |first2=Scott |last3=Sengupta |first3=Dhriti |last4=Aron |first4=Shaun |last5=Choudhury |first5=Ananyo |date=2018-08-01 |title=African genetic diversity provides novel insights into evolutionary history and local adaptations |journal=Human Molecular Genetics |language=en |volume=27 |issue=R2 |pages=R209–R218 |doi=10.1093/hmg/ddy161 |pmid=29741686 |pmc=6061870 |issn=0964-6906}}

{{further|Austronesian peoples#Austronesian expansion}}

File:Chronological dispersal of Austronesian people across the Pacific.svg.]]

The first seaborne human migrations were by the Austronesian peoples {{dubious|date=January 2023}} originating from Taiwan known as the "Austronesian expansion".{{cite journal |last1=Meacham |first1=William |title=On the improbability of Austronesian origins in South China |journal=Asian Perspective |date=1984–1985 |volume=26 |pages=89–106 |url=https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/16921/AP-v26n1-89-106.pdf |access-date=9 November 2019 |archive-date=9 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109104620/https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/16921/AP-v26n1-89-106.pdf |url-status=dead }} 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.{{cite journal |last1=Bellwood |first1=Peter |title=The Austronesian Dispersal and the Origin of Languages |journal=Scientific American |date=1991 |volume=265 |issue=1 |pages=88–93 |jstor=24936983 |bibcode=1991SciAm.265a..88B |doi=10.1038/scientificamerican0791-88 }}

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.{{cite book |first1=Helen |last1=Heath |first2=Glenn R. |last2= Summerhayes |first3=Hsiao-chun |last3=Hung |editor1-first=Philip J. |editor1-last=Piper |editor2-first=Hirofumi |editor2-last=Matsumara |editor3-first=David |editor3-last=Bulbeck |title =New Perspectives in Southeast Asian and Pacific Prehistory |chapter=Enter the Ceramic Matrix: Identifying the Nature of the Early Austronesian Settlement in the Cagayan Valley, Philippines |publisher=ANU Press |series=terra australis |volume=45 |year=2017 |isbn=978-1760460952 |chapter-url= http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n2320/html/ch12.xhtml?referer=&page=19}}{{cite journal |last1=Carson |first1=Mike T. |last2=Hung |first2=Hsiao-chun |last3=Summerhayes |first3=Glenn |last4=Bellwood |first4=Peter |title=The Pottery Trail From Southeast Asia to Remote Oceania |journal=The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology |date=January 2013 |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=17–36 |doi=10.1080/15564894.2012.726941|hdl=1885/72437 |s2cid=128641903 |hdl-access=free }}

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. The Austronesian expansion was the last and the most far-reaching Neolithic human migration event.{{cite web |last1=Lansing |first1=Steve |title=Did a butterfly effect change the history of the Pacific? |url=https://www.stockholmresilience.org/news--events/seminars-and-events/stockholm-seminars/previous-seminars/2012/ss-2012/2012-05-31-did-a-butterfly-effect-change-the-history-of-the-pacific.html |website=Stockholm Resilience Centre |publisher=Stockholm University |access-date=9 November 2019 |archive-date=9 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191109105003/https://www.stockholmresilience.org/news--events/seminars-and-events/stockholm-seminars/previous-seminars/2012/ss-2012/2012-05-31-did-a-butterfly-effect-change-the-history-of-the-pacific.html |url-status=dead }}

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.{{cite news |last1=Lawler |first1=Andrew |title=Invaders nearly wiped out Caribbean's first people long before Spanish came, DNA reveals |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/12/invaders-nearly-wiped-out-caribbeans-first-people-long-before-spanish-came-dna-reveals/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201223160603/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/12/invaders-nearly-wiped-out-caribbeans-first-people-long-before-spanish-came-dna-reveals/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=23 December 2020 |work=National Geographic |date=December 23, 2020}} The descendants of these migrants include the ancestors of the Taíno and Kalinago (Island Carib) peoples.Fagan, B.M. (2007). People of the earth: An introduction to world prehistory. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall

{{main|Circumpolar peoples}}

File:Dorset,_Norse,_and_Thule_cultures_900-1500.svg 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.{{cite book|last=Hoffecker |first=John F. |title=A prehistory of the north: human settlement of the higher latitudes |publisher=Rutgers University Press|year=2005 |page=130|isbn=978-0813534695|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=_rL5F4EAaFkC&pg=PA132}}Gibbon, pp. 28–31

The Inuit are the descendants of the Thule culture, which emerged from western Alaska around CE 1000 and gradually displaced the Dorset culture.{{cite web |last=Rigby |first=Bruce |title=101. Qaummaarviit Historic Park, Nunavut Handbook |url= http://www.nunavuthandbook.com/parks_pgs_297_331.pdf |access-date=2009-10-02 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060529123547/http://www.nunavuthandbook.com/parks_pgs_297_331.pdf |archive-date=2006-05-29 |url-status=dead}}{{cite web |last=Wood |first=Shannon Raye |title=Tooth Wear and the Sexual Division of Labour in an Inuit Population |work=Department of Archaeology University of Saskatchewan |publisher=Simon Fraser University |date=April 1992|url= http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/bitstream/1892/5348/1/b14258730.pdf |access-date=2009-10-02 }}

• List of first human settlements
• Middle Paleolithic
• Quaternary extinction event
• Timeline of human evolution
• Timeline of maritime migration and exploration

{{Clear}}

{{reflist|group=note}}

{{Reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite journal |vauthors=Demeter F, Shackelford LL, Bacon AM, Duringer P, Westaway K, Sayavongkhamdy T, Braga J, Sichanthongtip P, Khamdalavong P, Ponche JL |year=2012 |title=Anatomically modern human in Southeast Asia (Laos) |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |volume=109 |issue=36 |pages=14375–14380 |doi=10.1073/pnas.1208104109 |display-authors=etal |bibcode=2012PNAS..10914375D |pmid=22908291 |pmc=3437904|doi-access=free }}
• {{cite book |last1=Litt |first1=Thomas |last2=Richter |first2=Jürgen |last3=Schäbitz |first3=Frank |title=The Journey of Modern Humans from Africa to Europe |date=2021 |publisher=Schweizerbart Science Publishers |location=Stuttgart, Germany |isbn=978-3510655342 |edition= |url=https://www.schweizerbart.de/publications/detail/isbn/9783510655342/Litt_et_al_Eds_The_Journey_of_Modern?af=featured |access-date=22 December 2021}}
• {{cite book |title=Who We Are And How We Got Here – Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past |title-link=Who We Are and How We Got Here |first=David |last=Reich |author-link= David Reich (geneticist) |publisher=Pantheon Books |year=2018 |isbn=978-1101870327}}; {{cite news |last=Diamond |first=Jared |title=A Brand-New Version of Our Origin Story |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/20/books/review/david-reich-who-we-are-how-we-got-here.html |date=20 April 2018 |newspaper=The New York Times |access-date=23 April 2018 }}
• {{cite journal |last=Veeramah |first=Krishna R. |author2=Hammer, Michael F. |title=The impact of whole-genome sequencing on the reconstruction of human population history |journal=Nature Reviews Genetics |date=4 February 2014 |doi=10.1038/nrg3625 |pmid=24492235 |volume=15 |pages=149–162 |issue=3|s2cid=19375407 }}

{{refend}}

• [http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/ Journey of Mankind – Genetic Map] – Bradshaw Foundation
• [http://www.businessinsider.com/prehistoric-human-migration-from-africa-animated-map-2015-5 Prehistoric Human Migration From Africa to World Video May 2015]
• {{cite web|first=James|last=Ashworth|website=Natural History Museum, London|title=When and how did modern humans, Homo sapiens, spread out of Africa and around the world?|url=https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/when-how-did-modern-humans-homo-sapiens-spread-out-of-africa.html?utm_content=pod2-cta&utm_campaign=news&utm_medium=email&utm_source=2595615_ma_sciencestories_20250220&utm_term=_&ID=f7212962177503c55fa4a1fedae7bbdf65cb27c1d16a868bfc042d18fc8d38c5&dm_i=2XEG,1JMSF,9NROKE,67P53,1|accessdate=20 February 2025}}

{{Early human migrations}}

{{Human Evolution}}

Category:Prehistoric migrations

Migration

Category:Paleolithic

Early migration

Category:Demographic history