immigrants or colonists?

Modern history starts in the late 15th century, around the time that Columbus discovered America in 1492, and from then until today the world has seen a massive shift of populations that completely overshadows the Greek colonial expansion of c. 3,000 years ago -- by which the Greeks populated the entire Mediterranean coastline from North Africa to Europe -- as well as the original movement out of Africa of our ancestors millions of years ago.

Like the Greek migrants, the modern migrants were not only assisted in their migration by their homeland but were also closely tied to it and dependant upon it.

Technically, migrants, or emigrants, are people who leave their country of birth to live elsewhere; and immigrants are migrants who come to live in another country with a population different from theirs.

It is impossible to be an emigrant without being an immigrant, and yet even though the lands these people were colonizing had indigenous populations and, in most cases, great civilizations, none of them thought of themselves as anything other than Spanish, Dutch, French or English or whatever.

In effect, like the Greeks before them, these people were colonists -- they had no intention of integrating with the indigenous populations -- and they saw the new lands as extensions of their homelands.

While colonization or expansionism was a marked feature of the Hellenic civilization (1300 BC - 558 BC), the Polynesian civilization (500BC - 1775AD), the early Islamic civilization and the Ottoman civilization (1310 - 1919), none can compare with the voracious greed for more land, more subject populations and more wealth than the Western civilization during the period 1600 - 1900.

For 300 years from 1600 to 1900 the European nations, particularly England and Spain, dispatched hundreds of thousands of migrants to the new colonies.

The period from 1492 to 1918 represented the so-called golden era of Western civilization. It was marked by incredible advances in science and technology that fuelled the expansionist zeal of all of the European nations that, in turn, resulted in hundreds of thousands of mediocre 'civilized' Europeans becoming incredibly wealthy and powerful through the exploitation and enslavement of other nations considered by them to be 'uncivilized'.

From 1492 onwards, then, western civilization evolved into an aggressive super-civilization, characterized by an emphasis on:

colonization - the need for more land to house and feed excess populations, usually obtained by forceful occupation and subjugation of indigenous populations;

trade - the need to expand import and export markets;

resources - the need to find new animal, vegetable and mineral resources to fuel the old economy;

power and greed - the desire for wealth and cheap labor; and

racial superiority (a concept that marks all civilizations, not just the western civilization).

Although some very early colonists migrated in order to enjoy religious freedom, the overriding purpose of migrants from Europe was to make a fortune in the colonies in order to establish themselves back home.

A lot of migrants did achieve their purpose, returning in later life to their homelands to enjoy a luxurious retirement, but the majority of migrants either did not get rich or loved their new land so much that they did not wish to return home.

It was at this point, when the former colonists became settled, that new settlers became 'immigrants' and were expected to integrate.

Immigrants who refuse to integrate and arrive in large numbers from a particular nation are, in effect, assuming the guise of 'colonists' intending to take over control of the land and its peoples.

moving out of africa

500,000 BC is the earliest dating of fossil remains of early man found outside of Africa. This was Sinanthropus lantianensis and surprisingly these fossils were found in China!

From 1,000,000 BC (the dating of Transvaal Man in southern Africa) to 500,000 BC (the dating of China Man and other hominid fossils) - there is a startling gap of 500,000 years in the human fossil record that indicates that this was the period of the greatest migration that has ever taken place.

Early man was on the move - to all corners of the Earth - using land mass bridges that just don't exist any more.

We know from DNA evidence that we are all related to the earliest African hominid fossils, so if our ancestors migrated from Africa to China - either crossing to Spain from Morocco in Northwest Africa and trekking through Europe; or crossing to the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt in the Northeast and trekking through the Middle East - why is there no record of their existence in the lands they traversed?

We know that there was a massive Ice Age in the northern lands that did not recede until 12,000 BC - after which human enterprise in that part of the world developed by leaps and bounds - so it would appear to be unlikely, but not impossible, that our ancestors made the trek to China through Spain.

Assuming that they trekked to Asia through the Middle Eastern lands, what happened to their remains along the way?

The earliest human fossil in the Middle Eastern lands was Neanderthaloid Man, dated 120,000 BC, and discovered in Israel. This is thousands of years later than what one might expect to account for the migration out of Africa towards Asia.

Interestingly, the earliest human fossil found in Europe was Caucasoid Heidelberg Man - Homo heidelbergensis - discovered in Germany and dated 450,000 BC. This, too, is much later than what one might expect to account for the migration out of Africa towards Asia - we are looking for human fossils dated between 1,000,000 BC and 500,000 BC - but it does indicate that migration did take place through Europe, and that it was the northwest coast Africans who led the migration out of Africa through Spain (just like they do in modern times, but without the need for boats).

Assuming that they trekked to Asia through Spain and Europe, we are still left with the question: what happened to their remains along the way?

The easiest solution to this problem is to assume that because that part of the world became the most heavily vegetated - and populated - in later years, the remains of our earliest ancestors are totally inaccessible, buried under mountainous layers of forests and debris.

To speculate that the wild animals consumed all of their remains, leaving none for us to find, raises the question why they would do this outside Africa, but not in African itself?

Did they throw their dead into the sea? Although customs about what to do with the dead did not emerge until much later in our evolution - the oldest known human burial site being in the Shanidar cave, northern Iraq, c. 60,000 BC - it is possible that those who trekked to China took the bones of their dead with them to the new land as some sort of primitive ancestor rite pre-dating a later Chinese custom.

However, considering the scarcity of food, a more likely explanation is that hunger forced them to eat their dead and break their bones into pieces - as many cultures still do today in respect of animal bones - in order to obtain nourishment from marrow. In desperate times, even modern man resorts to cannibalism.

Like most questions in history - especially concerning ancient times - there are no easy answers.

what's pangaea?

As the following diagram shows, Earth was once a single land mass called Pangaea. Imagine a ball exploding and breaking into pieces. Now, imagine those pieces as our present continents separated by oceans. The fit between South America and Africa is very clear indeed, but the other continents need a lot more imagination because 'continental drift' - constant movement of the sea-bed plates - has pushed some land masses far away from their original placement.

India, for instance, is now a sub-continent having jammed into Asia; and what is now Australia and the Antarctica once comprised the great southern continent of Gondwanaland. In about 40 million years it is expected that Australia will similarly collide with South-East Asia.

early migration routes

Unlike more modern migrants, whose journey is defined by a target destination and a well-trodden route, the first migrants had no idea where they were going or the hazards they would face.

It is important to remember that many millions of years ago, when the initial emigration was taking place, the geography of the Earth was very different to what it is now. There was one continental land mass, called Pangaea which facilitated migration west towards what is now South America and east towards what is now India and Australia.

After the cataclysmic events that split Pangaea into our present continents, the most amazing isolation of all species took place. North and South America - and Australia - remained unknown continents, with unknown people, and unknown civilizations until relatively recent times.

Africa remained the centre of the human universe, but now the migratory routes had to follow coastlines and mountain ranges. The region between the western Highlands of Cameroon and the eastern mountain ranges appears to provide a natural inland corridor north, as well as a coastal escape route south and west.

Without the means to ford wide rivers or traverse high mountains, this corridor provided the means by which countless people and animals over countless years migrated out of Equatorial Africa.

Those who trekked north either followed the banks of the River Nile as it flowed down to the Mediterranean Sea through lands we know now as Sudan and Egypt; or they followed the East African mountain ranges through lands we know now as Uganda, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. Taking the latter route, some may have found a pass through the mountain ranges to end up on the shores of the Indian Ocean in the land we know now as Kenya, and trekked from there along the eastern coastline and the Red Sea up to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.

Those who trekked west followed the coastline west, and then north, to lands we know now as Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Senegal and Mauritania; and when they reached Morocco, on the western shores of the Mediterranean Sea, they were then able to cross into Europe via Spain - just as they do now.

Fossil evidence, however, shows that the very earliest of the migrants trekked south - following the coastline to lands we know now as Angola, Namibia and South Africa. From the southernmost tip of Africa, it was then possible for them to follow the coastline north up the eastern coast of Africa through lands we know now as Swaziland, Mozambique, Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt until they, too, reached the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.