- Scientists have long known that Homo sapiens left Africa 70,000 years ago.
- Our ancient ancestors migrated across Eurasia 45,000 years ago.
- The timeline has left a 20,000 year gap in the timeline.
- READ MORE: Homo Sapiens was to blame for the extinction of the Neanderthal
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Scientists claim to have filled a gap in human history by discovering where Homo sapiens left Africa 20,000 years before settling in Eurasia.
It has long been known that our ancestors left the continent about 70,000 years ago and spread across Asia and Europe 45,000 years ago, but where they spent the time in between has long been a mystery.
A team of international researchers determined that around a thousand of these travelers lived in an area spanning the entire Middle East, known as the Persian Plateau.
The conclusion was made using ancient DNA, modern gene pools and paleoecological evidence showing that this region would have represented an ideal habitat before they continued to settle in Asia and Europe.
A team of international researchers determined that around a thousand of these travelers lived in an area spanning the Middle East, known as the Persian Plateau.
Luca Pagani, from the University of Padova (Italy), lead author of the study, said: “Our results provide the first complete picture of the whereabouts of the ancestors of all current non-Africans in the early phases of the colonization of Eurasia.” .
The team analyzed ancient genomes from western central Eurasia and China and found that the ancestors of today’s Eurasians emerged from the center 45,000 years ago and colonized most of Eurasia and Oceania.
Simulations were then created to look back in time, the landscape and climate of the Persian Plateau, revealing that it was highest during the time Homo sapiens arrived.
This, according to researchers, gave our ancestors an advantage over surrounding areas.
“In addition, the presence of a viable area located on both shores of the Red Sea and extending along the Mediterranean Sea seems to offer a suitable habitat,” reads the study published in Nature.
The people who inhabited the center at that time had dark skin and hair, perhaps similar to the Gumuz or Anuak who now live in parts of East Africa (stock)
These people lived in small, mobile groups of hunter-gatherers, the researchers said. The location of the center offered a variety of ecological environments, from forests to grasslands and savannahs, fluctuating over time between arid and humid intervals.
There would have been ample resources available, with evidence showing hunting of wild gazelles, sheep and goats, said study co-author Michael Petraglia of Australia’s Griffith University.
“Their diet would be composed of edible plants and small to large game,” he continued.
Hunter-gatherer groups appeared to have practiced a seasonal lifestyle, living in the lowlands during the colder months and in the mountainous regions during the warmer months.’
The people who inhabited the center at the time had dark skin and hair, perhaps similar to the Gumuz or Anuak who now live in parts of East Africa.
‘Rock art appeared simultaneously as soon as people left the center. Therefore, these cultural achievements could have been gestated while they were at the center,” Pagani said.
However, no fossilized remains of Homo sapiens have been recovered in the Persian Platea, but they have been found in Arabia and the Levant; This group would be a direct descendant of those at the center, the study stated.
Homo sapiens was not the first human species to live outside Africa, including the area around the center. Ancient interbreeding of our species has left a small Neanderthal contribution to the DNA of modern non-Africans.
“There is evidence that there were Neanderthals in the area before the arrival of Homo sapiens, so it is very possible that the center was the place where that interaction took place,” Vallini said.