Thursday, August 30, 2007

Migration of early humans aided by wet weather

Science Daily

The African origin of early modern humans 200,000--150,000 years ago is now well
documented, with archaeological data suggesting that a major migration from tropical east Africa to the Levant took place between 130,000 and 100,000 years ago via the presently hyper-arid Saharan-Arabian desert.

This migration was dependent on the occurrence of wetter climate in the region. Whereas there is good evidence that the southern and central Saharan-Arabian desert experienced increased monsoon precipitation during this period, no unequivocal evidence has been found for a corresponding rainfall increase in northern part of the migration corridor, including the Sinai-Negev land bridge between Africa and Asia.

No comments: