Out of Africa Theory

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Development across the world soared to unprecedented levels during the latter half of the nineteenth century as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Increased access to international markets, improvements in technology, advancements in medicinal practices, expansion of education and greater access to resources allowed for many countries, especially those in North America and Europe to rapidly progress through stages two and three of the demographic transition model. Although the global pace of development had increased substantially, the majority of this development was clustered in North America and Europe rather than being evenly dispersed throughout the world.
The widely acclaimed replacement theory, also known as the “Out of Africa” theory (see Appendix 1), suggests that Homo sapiens originated in Africa and through a series of migrations replaced those of the Homo erectus species in Eurasia without interbreeding (Johanson). Syllogistically speaking, because Homo sapiens originated in Africa, and it takes time to develop, Africa should be the most development continent because African inhabitants had a larger amount of time to allocate towards development relative to other continents. However, according to the human development reports posted in 2013 by the United Nations Development Program, out of 186 countries that have designated HDI values, African nations constitute approximately 37 out of the lowest 50 in HDI ranking while nations in North America and Europe alone constitute over 37 out of the highest 50. Due to immense historical documentation of these more developed countries (MDCs) exploiting the lower developed countries (LDCs) for their resources, land, and population, it can be inferred that there is significa...

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...tion, and warfare that was created because of European colonists establishing superimposed boundaries between nations that disregarded relations between various African tribes. Because conflicting tribes were often in the same nation, it would lead to warfare, which furthermore hinders development because the nation is in a constant state of war.

Works Cited

1. List of HDI by country: https://data.undp.org/dataset/Table-2-Human-Development-Index-trends/efc4-gjvq
2. “Out of Africa Theory” http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/johanson.html
3. Economic Development in the Third World by: Michael Todaro
4. Demographic Transition Model Image: http://hs-geography.ism-online.org/2010/09/07/the-demographic-transition-model/
5. Demographic Transition Model Info: http://www.uwmc.uwc.edu/geography/demotrans/demtran.htm
6. Dictionary of Human Geography Derek Gregory

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