Modern Human Expansion

Modern Human Expansion

Archaeology 201
November 23, 11

Modern Human Expansion

Modern human expansion from Africa began 70,000-85,000 thousand years ago, but recent discoveries have found that they could have exited as early as 125,000 years ago. Many factors lead to the beginning of the African exodus of the modern human population. The most prominent factors involved with their rapid expansion are the drastic climate changes in that area. As well as that, a diverse diet rich in seafood provided the amino acids necessary for their growth of intelligence, and eventually a driving force in their migration. This diverse diet came available through the use new tools, which was also a main cause of their advancement.

Early hominid species could not advance due to their inability to innovate and adapt to different environments and situations (Stringer 35). Most were scavengers, and scavenged kills from big game animals. Early Modern Humans, as well as a few other species of human, developed the use of tools to facilitate activities, such as hunting. These early hominids would never be the same again, after gaining the use of tools. These early people now had a concentrated and nutritious food, which was meat and seafood. Now, without having to use all their energy to acquire their food, they could turn to other things and begin to evolve culturally. This meat, along with freeing up time, it released important metabolic resources. Our powerful digestive systems that were needed to process vegetation low in nutrition were freed of some of the rigors of their work (Stringer 35). This provided mothers with high quality food for the brains of their developing babies, and continuing brain food as those infants grew up. Apart from the meat, the fat and bone marrow, among other nutrients, that was being consumed was extremely easy to digest which permitted the development of smaller stomachs which used less energy. The surplus energy was then used to feed our brains, which began to expand significantly. Until the expanded nutrition came in, our brain size was constrained. A creature cannot have a big digestive system while at the same time having a big brain. This would involve the consumption of energy around the clock, which would leave no time for any other activities other than hunting. As they started to eat meat, they began to get smarter, and found out better ways to get their nutrition, being that from meat, or from other resources, such as seafood (Stringer 36). Most of the sites in southern Africa had piles of seashells, as well as other evidence of seafood. This suggests that the different type of nutrition, served as a trigger at a crucial point in human history, providing the fatty acids that modern humans needed to fuel their larger brains. This made them more cognitively aware, faster-wired, faster-brained, and smarter (Gugliotta). All of this lead to the expansion of modern humans around the world, and allowed it to happen extremely quickly.

For several decades, since the discovery of the Lascaux Cave in France, Archaeologists believed that while anatomically modern Homo sapiens evolved somewhere between 100-150,000 years ago, humans didn’t actually develop modern behaviors until later. By at least 80,000 years ago, if not earlier, modern humans entered a period of innovation, where they acquired new behaviors and started to manufacture new objects. Evidence of this comes from South African cave sites as Blombos, Klasies River, Diepkloff and Sibidu. Along the Klasies River, there are also two middle stone-age sites that produced stone tools, Howiesons Poort and Stillbay. By at least 120 000 years ago, however, it is argued that people from the middle stone age had developed a lifestyle and level of human consciousness similar to that of modern people. The implications are that they spoke a relatively sophisticated language, were mentally capable of symbolic and conceptual thought (including art). This is supported by rare fragments of human bones from Klasies River, where the remains are found among Middle Stone Age artifacts. These bones date back between 115,000 and 80,000 years ago, which means that by at least 80,000 years ago, modern humans had already began to develop modern human behaviors which would allow them to begin their exodus out of Africa (Stringer 41). Sites along the Klasies River also shows an advancement of technology, mainly that of stone tools. In the Howiesons Poort and Stillbay stone tool creating sites, this is shown. These sites contain stone industries that are comparable to European Upper Paleolithic in their sophistication, but dated fully 20,000 to 30,000 years earlier than the upper Paleolithic. Tools from these sites include projectile points, and crescent-shaped blades. Other advances are in the form of abstract, portable art, in the form of ochre, which has been engraved in a crosshatched pattern. According to the article by K. Kris Hirst, some scholars have pointed to similarly sophisticated industries in eastern Africa and Asia, at dates ranging about 30,000 to 50,000 BP. This may thus represent the migration of Early Modern Humans from South Africa beginning about 60,000 years ago along the southern dispersal route, well before the European colonization by Africans leading to the European upper Paleolithic (Hirst).

In the Blombos cave site, there have been artifacts found that include sophisticated bone and stone tools, fish bones, and an abundance of used ochre. As well as those bone fragments earlier discussed; they also found evidence for symbolic thought in the form of decorative art (Middle Stone Age). Researchers found a cluster of deliberately perforated and red-stained shell beads dating to the middle stone age, about 75,000 years ago. Ochre has no economic function; it is almost universally accepted as a source of color for ceremonial or decorative purposes. This suggests that they had been strung together as a necklace. The use of colors for different purposes and the jewelry shows that there was growth of human symbolic thought during this time, and one of the main forces behind the expansion of humans throughout the rest of the world. (D’Errico). For the expansion of modern humans into the different areas of the world, archaeologists have 3 main theories on how they had done it, The Out of Africa theory, the multi-regional theory, and the Southern Dispersal Route. Out of all of these, the Southern Dispersal Route has the most substantial evidence. As shown in the preceding paragraph, many sites along the south of Africa are evidences of this. This theory concerning the early migration of modern human beings from southern Africa to the east along the coastlines of Africa, Arabia, and India to Australia and Melanesia between about 70,000 and 45,000 years ago. This theory also implies that these early humans had a generalized subsistence strategy based on hunting and gathering coastal resources and traveling the along the coasts eastward. (Field). Australian rock art in the Malakunanja Rockshelter, along with archeological evidence from that area shows that modern humans had arrived between 65,000 years ago and 60,000 years ago. Northern Australia is the most likely place for people to have travelled from Southeast Asia across the land bridges (Australia’s Rock Art). The appearance of 40,000-year-old sites occupied by modern humans in Australia such as Lake Mungo and Devil’s Lair support the colonization of the rest of Australia by 40,000 years ago and is evidence of the Southern Dispersal theory. Devil’s lair is a cave site located in Western Australia, which earliest has been dated to approximately 41-48,000 years old, and perhaps earlier still (Chris S.M). This shows that people had occupied the Australian continent by that time, which further provides proof for the Southern Dispersal theory. Hearths found within the cave provide evidence for human occupation within the cave (Dortch 266). From here, they could have also spread north, which would follow the Out of Africa theory. However, increasing evidence shows that they first spread through to South Asia before they ever headed north, up into Europe. The results of a GIS analysis suggests that modern Homo sapiens could have traversed both the interior and coastlines using a number of routes, and colonized South Asia relatively rapidly. Use of these routes also implies a scenario in which modern H. sapiens, by either increased population growth or competitive ability, may have replaced indigenous South Asian hominid populations (Field). As well as that, it is essential to look at the environmental conditions of that time period to understand the possible routes and causes of dispersal into different areas. By 75,000 years ago, they had reached all the way to the southern part of China, following the coastline up through India, and Indonesia. However, at 74,000 years ago, the Mount Toba super-eruption took place. This immense volcanic eruption caused a prolonged worldwide nuclear winter and released ash in a huge plume that spread to the northwest and covered India, Pakistan, and the gulf region with a 15-foot blanket of ash (Bradshaw). This caused a mass extinction of all the people who were situated in that area, and paused the expansion out into other areas, while the human population got time to repopulate. Evidence of this is shown with the Kota Tampan culture, where tools of this culture can be found within the ashes of the super volcano. This means that modern humans got to Southeast Asia more than 74,000 years ago, before the volcanic eruption. This makes the 85,000-year-old exodus out of Africa a lot more likely for this group (Bradshaw). This split up the modern human population in 2, the people left in Africa, and the people now situated around the Borneo area. This can be clearly seen through genetic evidence, and makes sense because it fills in the gap that explains why Europe had only been colonized by 40,000 years ago. This delay in migration was caused by the Toba eruption, presumably because of the relatively cold and inhospitable climate and a less than welcoming Neanderthal population. After the displacement and extinction of the Neanderthals, the modern humans were able to survive there uncontested and allowed them to thrive (Gugliotta).

The Out of Africa or African Replacement Hypothesis argues that every living human being is descended from a small group in Africa, who then dispersed into the wider world displacing earlier forms such as Neanderthal (Klein). While there is proof that we are all descendants of one group of people in northern Africa, the fact still remains that there could have been more than one migration wave out of Africa. Recent findings found in the Arabian Peninsula, date back as early as 125,000 years. This means that the modern humans who lived in Africa had left the continent much earlier than previously thought, almost by 50,000 years (Finds in Oman). Apart from this, these sites are located inland, extremely far away from the coast, and this challenges currently accepted theories in which early humans only stayed along the coast. Seeing that there were groups of people that headed farther southeast, this indicates that a separate group of people had decided to head inland, following the game. During that time, circa 120,000 years ago, that area wasn’t an arid, life-less desert, but a paradise rich in resources (Rose). During this time, they could not keep heading north to populate Europe due to the harsh conditions in that area. This is why Europe wasn’t settled until 40,000 years ago, when the glacial conditions started to recede north (Hoffecker). Sites proving this model include the Upper Paleolithic occupations, in the Upper Moravian plain in the Czech republic.

Works Cited

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