Archaeologica.org

A couple of comments.
Single individuals wandering through the landscape would not have a large strain on any particular H/G groups local resources, lean times, not withstanding. But I don't favor the idea generally of single men roaming the wilderness except for a short time as a sort of right of passage into manhood. The model which we have seen throughout recorded history has been matriarchal or patriarchal societies build around family clans, and women often bartered or agreeably relocated from neighboring clans.

Most animal species will permit bachelor groups within their domains even if they are expected to keep a certain polite distance from the alpha male's females. Further, many species have daily challenges and reordering of the group hierarchy and to do that challengers must be near-by. Very rarely, is an individual outcast completely.

Further, from the societal models we see in the middle east, nomadic clans will from time to time relocate enmass. Ususally this can not be undertaken except through certain rules or cooperation agreements between the party moving and the party whose land is about to be invaded. Some kind of agreement is struck or overriding cultural rules determine the "rules of engagement" and passage. These moves involve cattle, goods, men, women and children, chattel or all sorts, food, water and provisions. Land rights are transferred. It involves a kind of legal system at times.

Absolutely Monk! Read the OT and Abram's movement south, it reads pretty much as you described above.
Sorryyy Min!

Don't apologize to Min, he's watching the Hockey play-offs. He won't see your post for a few days and then he'll be out of context. But then again, if the Rangers lose, he could be furious.

I was thinking last night, there should also be trails or roads, on Min's map of H/G groups. Seems there have always been accepted travel routes, cutting across regions.

To juxtapose the mechanisms of hyperdiffusion and multi-regionalism as if either the one, or the other happened, is too simplistic. They both happened. Simultaneously. And, obviously, affected eachother's outcomes.
That, of course, makes 'm only more complicated to distinguish from one another.

Wheee 7-0, and up 3-0 in the series.

Trails are formed by the repeated movements of people or animals. Someone had to be the pathfinder. We're told that there were numerous rivers in the Sahara at one time and following these rivers is the logical means of migration for anyone.

The Nile, being the largest river, and also the one closest to the exit point for Africa seems more logical than most.

But still, why would people WANT to leave the Nile Valley for parts unknown. The only reason I can think of, offhand, is the finding of Fekri Hassan that there were monumental floods in the Nile Valley in the 11th millenium which wiped out the fledgling agricultural civilization which had developed there. Now that is a reason to want to get out of Dodge. Could it also be the germ for the tales of enormous floods which drowned a lot of people?

I think that depends on which side of the Nile you happen to be on Min. The cataracts are a barrier to crossing, so is the Sud, and below the cataracts it's a boat job.

Minimalist wrote:
Trails are formed by the repeated movements of people or animals. Someone had to be the pathfinder. We're told that there were numerous rivers in the Sahara at one time and following these rivers is the logical means of migration for anyone.

The Nile, being the largest river, and also the one closest to the exit point for Africa seems more logical than most.

But still, why would people WANT to leave the Nile Valley for parts unknown. The only reason I can think of, offhand, is the finding of Fekri Hassan that there were monumental floods in the Nile Valley in the 11th millenium which wiped out the fledgling agricultural civilization which had developed there. Now that is a reason to want to get out of Dodge.

That, or the opposite: droughts!
We 'know' the middle of the Sahara dried out in the early Holocene. No reason why that couldn't also have happened 10, 20 or even 100,000 years earlier. Why would a big drought have been limited to Darfur Lake? The Nile was/is 'close'. It stands to reason droughts like that seriously affected the available water flowing down the Nile.

Could [those monumental floods] also be the germ for the tales of enormous floods which drowned a lot of people?

If not the germ, then minimally a strong reinforcement.
As happened a number of times, like the Bosporus breach that turned Euxine Lake into the Black Sea around 6,500 BC.

I'm convinced all those flood tales, together, coalesced over the ages into the epic 'flood at the beginning of time' that so many religions know.