One small step

[andrewducker]

The great leap is a Guardian article about the journey out of Africa and the change that happened in the species around that time.

By looking at a combination of clues from the human genome and archaeology we can trace two routes - one along the southern coast of Asia, which reached Australia around 50,000 years ago. Another route, inland via the Middle East, would lead to the settlement of Europe by around 35,000 years ago and to the Americas (via the Siberian arctic) 20,000 years later.

Fascinating stuff. Anyone recommend a good book on the subject?

Comments

[drainboy.livejournal.com]

That's fine, the general results seem fine and vague enough to listen to as well understood to the depth of understanding we can manage after the fact.

But counting a population in the single figure thousands from 60k years later must, I presume, require almost as many made up numbers as Drake's Equation.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

I can't really help, lacking the precise detail and training. I do know that there is controversy over the mutation rate, just to muddy it further.

I suspect that the actual research quotes a wide range figure with a large margin of error, but that sort of stuff never makes it into the summaries.