Arabian Artifacts May Rewrite 'Out of Africa' Theory

LiveScience ^ | Wednesday, November 30, 2011 | Charles Choi

[SunkenCiv]

Newfound stone artifacts suggest humankind left Africa traveling through the Arabian Peninsula instead of hugging its coasts... stone artifacts at least 100,000 years old... more-than-100 newly discovered sites in the Sultanate of Oman apparently confirm that modern humans left Africa through Arabia long before genetic evidence suggests. Oddly, these sites are located far inland, away from the coasts. ...in the Dhofar Mountains of southern Oman, nestled in the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula... of a style dubbed Nubian Middle Stone Age, well-known throughout the Nile Valley, where they date back about 74,000-to-128,000 years... Subsequent field work turned up dozens of sites with similar artifacts. Using... optically stimulated luminescence dating... to see how long they have been interred, the researchers estimate the artifacts are about 106,000 years old, exactly what one might expect from Nubian Middle Stone Age artifacts and far earlier than conventional dates for the exodus from Africa.

Instead of hugging the coast, early modern humans might therefore have spread from Africa into Arabia along river networks that would've acted like today's highways, researchers suggested. There would have been plenty of large game present, such as gazelles, antelopes and ibexes, which would have been appealing to early modern humans used to hunting on the savannas of Africa.

"The genetic signature that we've seen so far of an exodus 70,000 years ago might not be out of Africa, but out of Arabia," Rose told LiveScience.

It remains a mystery as to how early modern humans from Africa crossed the Red Sea, since they did not appear to enter the Arabian Peninsula from the north, through the Sinai Peninsula, Rose explained.

[SunkenCiv]

The stone artifacts found in Oman were likely made by striking flakes off flint, leading to distinctive triangular shapes. This is the first time this particular stone tool technology has been found outside of Africa. CREDIT: Yamandu Hilbert

[muawiyah]

Let me guess, they built boats and paddled across the Red Sea.

[JimSEA]

An early African exit makes a lot of sense. You have to remember that a great deal of the potential evidence of costal sites are under water now.

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks StayAt HomeMother. This looks really familiar, but there's apparently no earlier topic about it; my guess is, someone has sent this link before, my apologies for my memory lapse. Not to whine, but I've had more than usual on my plate. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.

[Pharmboy]

Great stuff and no surprise. Agenda-driven anthropologists cease being scientists...they’ve been trying to sell us “out-of-Africa” happened—essentially—yesterday for a while now.

[GourmetDan]

""The genetic signature that we've seen so far of an exodus 70,000 years ago might not be out of Africa, but out of Arabia," Rose told LiveScience."

Close enough...

[JimSEA]

The “out of Africa” moment might just be out of central Asia from where lines can be traced to East Asia, Southeast Asia, Europe, etc. If Homo Erectus found his way there 200,000+ years ago, just maybe we did as well.

[hinckley buzzard]

North Africa and the Saudi peninsula were probably not deserts back then so traveling north from continental Africa was no terrible trek. And the Red Sea was likely shallower and miles narrower, especially at the southern crossing into Yemen at Bab el Mandhib, where the East African Rift Zone, home of most of the earliest humanoid fossils, continues on and becomes the Red Sea. It would have been a natural route for early nomads to follow the Rift Valley north, crossing a narrow gulch into broader flatter lands of the coast of the Arabian peninsula.

Since the original "Out of Africa" hypothesis has been substantially discredited by further research, this appears to be a likely possibility.

[dog breath]

I love how every time they start to think they have it figured out something comes along and upsets all the theories. The out of Africa all humans share the same DNA was politically popular and dogma for several decades. The finding that there are at least 2 different strains of archaic DNA in human populations that migrated out of Africa was one blow. That there could of been a separate Arabian launching place for the modern humans traveling into Asia and Europe is another. We are different and unique even if the same species.

[blam]

"...they’ve been trying to sell us “out-of-Africa” happened—essentially—yesterday for a while now."

My 1-4% Neanderthal genes say that I was in Europe as early as 600,000 years ago.

Neandertal Genome Study Reveals That We Have A Little Caveman In Us

[JoeProBono]

[colorado tanker]

The lack of evidence on the present coastline is really meaningless because it wasn’t the coast back then. So, we don’t have anything to compare this to to see how many may have taken this route versus a coastal route.

[SunkenCiv]

You don’t look a day over 500,000. ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!

[muawiyah]

All of the theories have to conform to the timeline set by the advances and retreats of the Great Ice Sheets as well as the Saharan pluvials.

We should start giving some serious consideration to how 4 billion of us will live when Canada turns into an enormous ski-slope.

[dog breath]

If there is one thing humans do well it is adapt to difficult situations.