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]

How about these, seeing as they were at the bottom of the article ;)

Further reading

The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey by Spencer Wells.
Penguin (2003). ISBN 0141008326
The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond.
Vintage (1992). ISBN 0099913801
The Dawn of Human Culture by Richard Klein and Blake Edgar.
John Wiley (2002). ISBN 0471252522
Molecular evolution of FOXP2 by Wolfgang Enard et al.
Nature 418: 869-872 (2002)
The evolutionary origin of complex features by Richard Lenski et al.
Nature 423: 139-144 (2003)


I do wonder where he got the figures of 2,000 people 60k years ago. How you could be so precise over that long a time is beyond me.

Mike

[kallah]

Actually, the Siberian arctic is an unlikely method of populating the Americas. The last research I saw on the subject suggested that the area had little in the way of game to attract anyone. Boats are considerably more likely, and would explain the population distribution better - archaelogical sites don't get younger the further south one travels.