Hominid migration patterns

[Rokcet Scientist]

For the DNA chompers among us:



http://www.utexas.edu/features/2007/anc ... medium.jpg

[E.P. Grondine]

Thanks greatly for the link, RS.

It's a start, though they are still more than a little confused about Asian events, IMO.

[Rokcet Scientist]

I'm critical about the value of this map: it shows no traces south of Kenya, while afaik important early hominid branches lived in southern Africa (often, but not exclusively, on the coast), which are inexplicably absent from this map.

[kbs2244]

And no explanation of people on the central west coast of SA before on the far west coast of NA.

Let alone the northeast coast of SA

[Digit]

Which raises a question I asked a long time ago, why are these people all supposed to have headed north as opposed to other directions? What was the draw?

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Which raises a question I asked a long time ago, why are these people all supposed to have headed north as opposed to other directions? What was the draw?

The first waves went north and east - I'm guessing around 2,3MYA - because that's where the great unknown emptiness was and where the coastlines led them. But I'm assuming that some started to double back as well soon after. And from then on humanoids went in every direction. At the same time.
It's probably un-retraceably complex.

[Digit]

I could be totally wrong RS but I've always worked on the basis that they probably followed the Rift, which would have led them effectively north, but the later migrations, dunno about earlier ones, would have then reached the north African savannah, which would lead them east/west.
But why not south down the Rift as well as north?

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

But why not south down the Rift as well as north?

They did. And ended up in places like Sterkfontein, Mossel bay and Plettenberg Bay. But that's a dead end street* as you can see on a map so that's probably the route where the doubling back mechanism started the earliest.
This is all assuming Lucy as Eve, of course.
Who's ancestors, to complicate matters, seem to include a strong lineage from 10MYA Europe. From Hungary, to be more exact...

So you tell me when the doubling back started!

*although I don't exclude the possibility that some paddled to Antarctica and even settled there. Climates were very different and Antarctica wasn't wholly frozen over like today.