**1. Out-of-Africa Migration Waves:**
– Recent African origin or Out of Africa II migration
– Out-of-Africa migration took place in waves
– Recent out-of-Africa migration took place in waves
– Complexity of Single-Origin Migrations
– Discovery of modern-archaic admixture
**2. Dispersal Routes and Timelines:**
– Two main accepted dispersal routes – Northern Route and Southern Route
– Northern Route Dispersal
– Southern Route Dispersal
– Southern Route dispersal
– Dates of human presence in Asia
**3. Interbreeding and Genetic Evidence:**
– Evidence of interbreeding between Homo sapiens and archaic humans
– Modern population groups descended from early Homo sapiens and archaic humans
– Fossil evidence supports early Homo sapiens migration
– Genetic mutations in human DNA indicate migration between 90,000 and 130,000 years ago
– Autosomal DNA studies
**4. Regional Dispersal and Settlement:**
– Western Asia
– Oceania
– East and Southeast Asia
– Population history of Eastern Eurasia
– Early human dispersal into Europe
**5. Mitochondrial Haplogroups and Lineage:**
– Mitochondrial haplogroup L3 migrated from East Africa into the Near East 50–70,000 years ago
– Mitochondrial haplogroups within Africa
– Mitochondrial haplogroups within Africa
– Haplogroups M and N share characteristics with original African groups
– Descendants of only one lineage, mtDNA haplogroup L3, are found outside Africa
In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans or the "Out of Africa" theory (OOA) is the most widely accepted model of the geographic origin and early migration of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens). It follows the early expansions of hominins out of Africa, accomplished by Homo erectus and then Homo neanderthalensis.
Homo erectus greatest extent (yellow)
Homo neanderthalensis greatest extent (ochre)
Homo sapiens (red)
The model proposes a "single origin" of Homo sapiens in the taxonomic sense, precluding parallel evolution in other regions of traits considered anatomically modern, but not precluding multiple admixture between H. sapiens and archaic humans in Europe and Asia. H. sapiens most likely developed in the Horn of Africa between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago, although an alternative hypothesis argues that diverse morphological features of H. sapiens appeared locally in different parts of Africa and converged due to gene flow between different populations within the same period. The "recent African origin" model proposes that all modern non-African populations are substantially descended from populations of H. sapiens that left Africa after that time.
There were at least several "out-of-Africa" dispersals of modern humans, possibly beginning as early as 270,000 years ago, including 215,000 years ago to at least Greece, and certainly via northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula about 130,000 to 115,000 years ago. There is evidence that modern humans had reached China around 80,000 years ago. Practically all of these early waves seem to have gone extinct or retreated back, and present-day humans outside Africa descend mainly from a single expansion about 70,000–50,000 years ago,[excessive citations] via the so-called "Southern Route". These humans spread rapidly along the coast of Asia and reached Australia by around 65,000–50,000 years ago, (though some researchers question the earlier Australian dates and place the arrival of humans there at 50,000 years ago at earliest, while others have suggested that these first settlers of Australia may represent an older wave before the more significant out of Africa migration and thus not necessarily be ancestral to the region's later inhabitants) while Europe was populated by an early offshoot which settled the Near East and Europe less than 55,000 years ago.
In the 2010s, studies in population genetics uncovered evidence of interbreeding that occurred between H. sapiens and archaic humans in Eurasia, Oceania and Africa, indicating that modern population groups, while mostly derived from early H. sapiens, are to a lesser extent also descended from regional variants of archaic humans.