KATERINA HARVATI / TüBINGEN UniversityTwo migrations: the first (green) and second (red) migratory waves started respectively 130,000 and 50,000 years ago KATERINA HARVATI / TüBINGEN University
The first modern humans left Africa to spread across the world in at least two separate migratory waves, instead of one — and those movements started earlier than once thought. The first is believed to have taken place about 130,000 years ago, advancing through Southern Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, following the Pacific shoreline, and finally arriving in Australia. The second took a more northerly path out of Africa, about 50,000 years ago. Some of the migrants dispersed into South-Central Asia and the rest spread across the continent’s southeast. A group of researchers coordinated by Katerina Harvati at the University of Tübingen (Germany) came to that conclusion by comparing genetic and morphological cranial characteristics of modern-day human populations in Africa and Asia with geographical information about the potential migration routes. The study suggests that the original populations of Australia and Melanesia descended from the first migratory wave and remained relatively isolated. Other Asian populations are thought to descend either from the second migration or from interbreeding between the two (PNAS, April 2014).
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