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.

early migration timeframe

The migration of our ancestors by various routes out of Equatorial Africa towards Europe and other parts of the world took millions of years to accomplish.

Unlike later migrants imbued with religious fears about falling off the earth or being ambushed by dragons or heathens, the first migrants had neither concept of geographic limits nor enemies other than animals who would eat them.

Like later migrants, though, some would have lacked the stamina or the physique necessary to travel too far. Children, pregnant women and the elderly hold up all traveling tribes, and it is likely that as soon as a migrant group had found a relatively hospitable land - be it only a few day's trek from their original homeland - they would have stayed in that land until population pressures forced another migration.

Although a monumental trek overall, it was by incremental migration and settlement that our early ancestors managed to spread throughout the river and coastal regions of Africa and beyond, and when an impenetrable barrier was met reverse migration took place, inevitably involving warfare.

To give a rough idea of the time frame, the earliest Hominoid (man-like) fossil was found in Namibia on the west coast of Africa, 20 degrees south of the Equator. Bearing in mind that our primate ancestors probably developed as long ago as 225,000,000 BC in the Jurassic period of the Mesozoic Era along with the other mammals, the dating of this earliest known fossil called Otavi Pithecus Namibiensis - 12,500,000 BC - tells us not only something about the passage of time needed for development but also something about the earliest route the migrants took - south rather than north.

Dated 3,000,000 BC, "Lucy" an early Hominid (more like a modern human being than a Hominoid) was found in Ethiopia, along with flint knapping tools and axes dated 2,500,000 BC indicating the earliest industry.

In Tanzania, also on the East African coast, fossils of Homo Habilis were found and dated 2,400,000 BC, along with the earliest single structural home, a windbreak, dated 1,750,000 BC, indicating the earliest habitation.

Homo Erectus (upright man) was discovered in Kenya, between Tanzania and Ethiopia, and dated 1,600,000 BC.

In the southern area of Africa, the earliest fossil remains of man are Australopithecus Africanus, and Transvaal Man - Pleisianthropus transvaalensis - both dated 1,000,000 BC.

In the northern area of Africa, the earliest fossil remains of man were found in Algeria. Dated 500,000 BC, the Ternifine-Tangier Man, Atlanthropus, indicated a 500,000 year difference in the fossil record between him and the Transvaal Man of the south dated 1,000,000 BC.

By 500,000 BC, then - if not thousands of years before - our ancestors had reached the western Mediterranean and were in reach of Spain.