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I've been fascinated by this one since visiting the Natural History Museum in San Diego:

"A 130,000-year-old archaeological site in southern California, USA"

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22065



Interesting. MIS5e [1] would be a parallel to our current interglacial period. I think the evidence for 50-60 kya out-of-africa event for Homo sapiens is solid so I'm assuming this site would support the global reach of another Homo species like Neanderthals.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Isotope_Stage_5


I’ve never understood that number. I’ve read that modern humans have been around for 200k years, but I’m supposed to believe that for 3/4 of that time they stayed in Africa? BS. Maybe proof hasn’t been found, yet. But we know from our own experience that modern humans love to explore. I don’t believe that love of travel and adventure and exploration is cultural. Our modern ancestors would’ve been exploring out of Africa long before 50kya.


There's an important distinction between anatomically modern humans and behaviorally modern humans. Behaviorally modern humans were the ones that were able to migrate all over the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity


AFAIK, the best (first?) popular science book that tackles this question is Before the Dawn [1] by Nicholas Wade.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Before_the_Dawn_(book)


I think Neanderthals traveled out earlier so at least to some degree humans may have had to fight their way out with and ice age assist?




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