Recent African origin of modern humans

Rare card · No. 48562

The recent African origin of modern humans or the "Out of Africa" theory (OOA) holds that present-day humans outside Africa descend mainly from a single expansion of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) from Africa about 70,000–50,000 years ago. It is the most widely accepted paleo-anthropological model of the geographic origin and early migration of the human species. This expansion follows the earlier expansions of hominins out of Africa, accomplished by Homo erectus and then Homo neanderthalensis. 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 Africa between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago, with one hypothesis arguing that diverse morphological features of H. sapiens appeared locally in different parts of Africa and converged due to...

Read on Wikipedia · Image NordNordWest, Public domain