Out of Africa: An alternative scenario for the first human dispersal in Eurasia

Abstract

Recent paleoanthropological evidence from the early Pleistocene site of Dmanisi in Georgia has revealed that the first hominins out of Africa were more archaic than the coeval African and Asian Homo erectus. More evidence suggests that these archaic hominins were forest dwellers rather than savannah inhabitants. Between 1.8 and 1.6 million years ago a climate crisis caused a new spread of savannah and arid zones across large parts of Africa. As a consequence, early Homo populations splitted, with some populations becoming adapted to the new ecological conditions and others following woodland areas in their regression.

Keywords

• out of Africa
• Dmanisi
• early Homo
• sabertooth cats
• Early Pleistocene
• paleoclimatology