Upper Pleistocene Human Dispersals out of Africa: A Review of the Current State of the Debate

Figure 2

Potential source populations for the colonization of Eurasia in the Upper Pleistocene and a tentative reconstruction of Homo sapiens and Neanderthal relationship based on recent genetic study by Green et al. [64]. On the basis of a recent Paleolithic discovery in the United Arab Emirates [5], the first out of Africa dispersal of early modern humans may have occurred in the range of 150–130 kya. This may have stimulated successive eastward migrations of hominins up to Southeast Asia, resulting in the occupation of Zhirendong (South China) around 100 kya [38]. The author believes that the out of Africa dispersal scenarios shown by B, D, and D′′ may not have resulted in replacement of the preceding inhabitants of the Levant, Arabia, and Southeast Asia (be it Neanderthals, archaic humans, or those Homo sapiens carrying Neanderthal genetic material).