Do Humans Leave Africa

Over the last few centuries, many historians have been arguing over the way humans migrated out of Africa. It is generally believed that humans did in fact originate from Africa, the question is how and/or why. Some theories suggest that humans left in one big wave, not at once, but certainly not over a long period of time, and others suggest otherwise, that humans did leave Africa over a lengthy period of time, mainly before 50,000 B.C.E. Humans are believed to have specifically originated from East Africa (Lopez). The oldest modern human fossil was found in the Omo River Valley near the southern border of Ethiopia by Richard Leakey in 1969 (ibid.). Mainly believed to have formed near 195,000 B.C.E, this tells us that they were most likely

With North Africa receiving less sunlight, and getting more greener, it made the conditions of travelling across the Sahara better (ibid.). The cooler temperatures allowed the Homo Sapiens to move out (ibid.). The interesting thing is that these were “windows” of time in which these conditions would come around. This means that there were periods of time where it was dry and scorching dessert as well. There is no possible way humans could move out of Africa within one of these “windows” which meant that these periods of cooler temperatures and less sunlight would “regulate” the migrations over a lengthy period of time acting like stop lights. Timmerman’s research suggests that there were in fact 4 major migrations out of Africa, first one being 106,000 to 94,000 years ago, the second coming between 89,000 B.C.E and 73,000 B.C.E, third being between 59,000 and 47,000 years ago, and lastly between 45,000 to 29,000 B.C.E (Mascarelli) This research from Timmerman could well be the answer to all the confusion over the timing of human migrations out of Africa, considering the fluctuating time period suggestions from over 200,000 years ago from the Out Of Africa theory to 70,000 years ago as some historians suggest