# Why did our prehistoric ancestors migrate out of Africa? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 11, 2010, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944 "2010-08-11T16:16:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/21 "2010-08-11T19:23:31Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The relationship between Neanderthal and other hominids is still in question. And we weren’t wiped out, we just maintain **a low profile**. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/22 "2010-08-11T19:24:51Z")
> [@Spatial\_Rift\_47](#): > > To explore strange new continents. To seek out new food, and start new civilizations. To boldly go where no proto-man had gone before. To seek out new species, and eat them. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/23 "2010-08-11T19:26:03Z")
they wanted to snow ski ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [August 11, 2010, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/24 "2010-08-11T19:33:09Z")
They couldn’t afford the mortgage payments. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/25 "2010-08-12T17:28:39Z")
Consider the Americas, which were NOT inhabited by proto-humans. General thought (contested) is that humans arrived about 12000BC, or 14,000 years ago. Even allowing 2,000 years to reach Tierra Del Fuego, about 10,000 miles - that’s 5 miles a year. One-day hunting or fishing trips probably went farther than that. Some gaps - across the jungles at the south of Panama, maybe - would be most challenging, but presumably by then they had decent ocean-going watercraft and going 50 or 100 miles down the coast to establish a new campsite would not be a problem. Even with a land bridge, it’s likely that’s how they crossed into Alaska, follwoing the coast. Similarly, they would have crossed along Indonesia to Autralia about 40,000BC where boat technology was definitely required. I asume they spread like wildfire in America, with unlimited game that at first did not know to fear humans (read Darwin’s description of Galapagos birds), and not a lot of diseases to worry about. The most remote tribes are also the least technical because they are probably hiding from others with better weapons, pushed into the farthest corners. The Aztecs, Inca, central US mound builders, pueblo indians, and Iroquois had pretty good organization and advanced agriculture. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/26 "2010-08-12T17:58:32Z")
Wasn’t some migration just an extension of annual movements? For example, most of Europe during the summer is a great place to hunt and gather. But to survive the winter is a challenge - at least some of them were surely happy to head back south for winter. A nomadic hunter-gatherer group could easily move a couple hundred miles between different areas over the course of a year. I suspect the “bounds” of human habitation were quite fuzzy for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/27 "2010-08-12T18:59:30Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > It’s getting too damned crowded around here. Urk, Grawk, Thag - get your shit, we’re moving to the suburbs. Makes me wonder how long ago proper names evolved. In a group of 25, would there be need for names? Would offspring know their parents’ voice well enough that " Hey put that frog sweat-tipped spear down right now !! " would not need to be supported by a proper name? There’s documentation in ancient hebrew going back what, 5000 years? 6000? Back then, was a son called Isaac Ben Abraham or are the very ancient names we assign to those people not at all what they were really called? And 6,000 years is nothing. Should we reason that first names existed 25,000 years ago? Sorry for the hijack. Maybe this needs its own thread? Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/28 "2010-08-12T19:07:22Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > Makes me wonder how long ago proper names evolved. In a group of 25, would there be need for names? Would offspring know their parents’ voice well enough that " Hey put that frog sweat-tipped spear down right now !! " would not need to be supported by a proper name? I recall reading a book – I think it was by Rory Nugent – in which he came across a small island in the middle of the Brahmaputra inhabited by a family, all of whom had the same name modified by some relationship term. Something like Big Joe, Little Joe, Grandma Joe, Baby Joe, Mama Joe, etc. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/29 "2010-08-12T19:38:25Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > > [@CC](#): > > > > neanderthals were already there??? If you’re talking about pioneer populations, there wouldn’t already be neanderthals there, now, would there? Besides, I thought neanderthals were a European species. > > It’s not clear from the OP what you mean by “our” ancestors, whether the first modern humans (_Homo sapiens_) to leave Africa, or earlier populations. > > The earliest human species to leave Africa has long been thought to have been _Homo erectus_. However, some recent discoveries, including the archaic features of the “hobbits” of Indonesia (_Homo floresensis_), suggest that their were earlier ones. Those _H. Erectus_ left Africa about 2M years ago. The fossils found in Georgia (former Soviet Republic, not the US state) are about 1.8M years old and do seem to have some primitive traits, relative to _H. erectus_. > [@](#): > > The range of Neanderthals included the Middle East as well as Europe. The first modern humans to leave Africa would have found Neanderthals already there. True when the first moderns left Africa (about 100k years ago), but those populations are not the “Out of Africa” population(s). When the “Out of Africa” population(s) left, about 60k years ago, there were no longer Neanderthals in the Levant. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/30 "2010-08-13T08:46:21Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > The range of Neanderthals included the Middle East as well as Europe. The first modern humans to leave Africa would have found Neanderthals already there. From what I heard recently, they wouldn’t. A first population of Sapiens ended up in what is roughly Israel now (where there were neanderthals) but apparently this first population eventually died out. Our actual ancestors, according to this theory, would have later moved from Africa to Arabia (which had better resources than nowadays) before spreading everywhere. If this is correct, then our actual ancestors wouldn’t have met neanderthals just after leaving Africa, but only when they “migrated” north. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/31 "2010-08-13T09:45:19Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > So that any movements are likely to have been only a few dozen miles per generation at most. Yup - as a thumb suck, let’s say every generation (20 years) moves 40 km further, so that’s an average of 2km a year. In 50 000 years of \*just \*that kind of dispersal, you’ve circled the globe twice and are halfway through your third go. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/32 "2010-08-13T10:12:07Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > Should we reason that first names existed 25,000 years ago? Why not? The need to convey the “me/not me” distinction would be imperative in any even vaguely human-like sophont species, IMO. Hell, bottlenose dolphins have personal names (that they [choose for themselves](http://www.livescience.com/animals/060508_dolphin_names.html)). I have no problem believing chimps could, too. Captive apes certainly display a naming imperative. ETA - I don’t think that names arise from what others call you, but from a desire to individuate yourself. ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/33 "2010-08-13T10:15:54Z")
> [@Cartooniverse](#): > > Makes me wonder how long ago proper names evolved. This can(and is) actually studied. If you look up how to say “mom” in half a dozen languages you will see a definite pattern. By this means scholars are assembling a language called Proto-Indo-European or PIE. Nobody thinks its perfectly correct, but its a great best guess. Likewise you can do that with names. Consider the name “Anna” and its variants “Anna”, “Ana”, “Anya”, “Anne” and so on. Someone mentioned grandma joe, and thats the next step. You add some qualifier to the simple names. “Tanya”, “Lana”, and so on. Later on it gets more sophisticated with names like “Maryanne”. Coincidence? Consider “Tara”. “Mara”, "Kara, “Sara”,“Sarah”, “Mara”, “Lara”, “Maura”, “Laura” and such. There is this beautiful flow of subtle linguistic change. It seems likely that names like “Ana” and “Ara” would be very ancient indeed. I’m imagining hot twin sisters myself. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/34 "2010-08-13T11:10:17Z")
> [@FuzzyOgre](#): > > > [@Cartooniverse](#): > > > > Makes me wonder how long ago proper names evolved. > > This can(and is) actually studied. If you look up how to say “mom” in half a dozen languages you will see a definite pattern. By this means scholars are assembling a language called Proto-Indo-European or PIE. Nobody thinks its perfectly correct, but its a great best guess. Most languages are not Indo-European, so the first language(s) must be much older than PIE. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/35 "2010-08-13T11:14:23Z")
> [@NoClueBoy](#): > > > [@TriPolar](#): > > > > The relationship between Neanderthal and other hominids is still in question. And we weren’t wiped out, we just maintain **a low profile**. > > 😃 I don’t know about that. According to some recent television I have seen, they are raising their profile a bit. And not liking the response they are getting from the newcomers. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/36 "2010-08-13T12:54:36Z")
> [@FuzzyOgre](#): > > I’m imagining hot twin sisters myself. I’m always imagining hot twin sisters, but that’s just me. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/37 "2010-08-13T13:44:34Z")
Back to the OP. I saw a TV program a while back which made the case that humanity expanded out of Africa because it was able to. It mooted that the ice age had lowered the sea level so much that there was a land bridge across the Bab-el-Mandeb strait, and that the Saudi peninsula was extended and subject to the monsoons. And because of the monsoons there were fresh-water springs, which are now underwater. So humans were able to explore pastures new. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/38 "2010-08-13T14:07:28Z")
> [@CC](#): > > The best I can come up with is a dual answer - a search for better living conditions, i.e. better food sources, and/or some innate drive for variety, exploration, investigation. Because not everyone did migrate from Africa, there must have been something different about those who did. Maybe they were drawn to new areas out of a developing curiosity, a nascent interest in new things. It would seem that aside from a need to feed and protect the tribe or family, there must have been some inner drive to explore new areas among those who did move away. What are some current ideas on WHY our ancestors migrated all over the globe, or at least out of Africa, while others stayed behind? It’s possible that it was the bold intrepid humans who went off and discovered new lands. But it’s equally possible that our ancestors were the losers of primitive society. The better, smarter, and more physically fit cavemen may have kicked our ancestors out of the tribe and we were forced to go find someplace else to live. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/39 "2010-08-13T14:29:49Z")
FuzzyOgre writes: \> This can(and is) actually studied. If you look up how to say “mom” in half a \> dozen languages you will see a definite pattern. By this means scholars are \> assembling a language called Proto-Indo-European or PIE. Nobody thinks its \> perfectly correct, but its a great best guess. This is kind of a strange way to put it. You make it sound like the study of Indo-European is a recent thing. In fact, it’s usually considered as starting in 1786 (although there are some precursors). By 1927 most of the major outlines of the subject were worked out: > **[Indo-European studies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_studies)** > > Pontic Steppe > Caucasus > East Asia ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944/40 "2010-08-13T16:22:38Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > A lot of it is just kind of random drift, not conscious, destination-oriented “migration,” just tribes rambling further out from more populated areas over the generations. Ah, but there were exceptions. [QUOTE=Assembling Northward: The Swedish Syndrome in Migration] The Bjåthetüwelle Tribe migrated to what is modern-day Sweden when they invented what we now recognize as The Allen Wrench… [/QUOTE] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-our-prehistoric-ancestors-migrate-out-of-africa/549944.md?page=3)