After about 6 KYA, evidence reveals a sequence of use of metals—copper, bronze, and finally iron—in the development of weaponry along with the progress of agriculture. Cro-Magnons evolved a more linear body shape adapted to warm climates and had the ability to make warm clothing and insulated habitations. They burned mammoth bones for warmth, engaged in far-flung trade, produced art, recorded time, had carved spear throwers, and buried votive articles. They survived in Europe for 25,000 years. Fossils in Sri Lanka and China during the same time period demonstrated similar art and production of artifacts. After the end of the Pleistocene Age about 10 KYA years ago, there is ample evidence of village and cooperative life among the Cro-Magnon humans. An example is Jericho in modern Israel. A set of stone steps found there date to around 8,000 BCE, at least 4,000 years before the Biblical chronology puts man on the earth. Caves and other excavations on the outskirts of Jericho reveal that people lived there and practiced primitive agriculture using wild grains and beginning to select out traits in the wheat that served them better well before that.
Cro-Magnon man–Homo sapiens sapiens–was the sole surviving member of the human species, and some have suggested that the Cro-Magnons may well have hastened the extinction of their last competitors, the Neanderthals. This remarkable last surviving humanoid species–our true ancestors–made excellent shelters and clothing to protect against the cold, had specialized tools for carving on mammoth tusks, made beautifully carved and functional spear throwers (atlatls) fashioned from reindeer antler, produced calendars etched onto ivory, and produced figure sculptures and nuanced large cave paintings of extant animals during the Upper Paleolithic age. They probably caused the extinction of mammoths. Skeletal evidence indicates that some of the huge elephantine creatures were still alive as late as 1700 B.C. Cro-Magnon DNA–although more difficult to come by than from Neanderthals–is similar to or virtually identical to that of recent Europeans and is similarly identical to the mtDNA of fossil Australians.
The original human diaspora largely–but not entirely—involved Homo sapiens sapiens. Fossil and DNA evidence indicates that genus homo left Africa around 1.8 MYA with erectus evolving in Europe to a dead end and sapiens evolving first in Africa and western Asia after 400 KYA. After 500 KYA, human-like populations persisted in Europe until about 20 KYA at the peak of the last ice age. During the height of the ice ages, areas of northern Europe and Asia were completely depopulated. During the warmer Holocene periods, populations grew to hundreds of thousands in Southern Europe, Central Asia, India, and Southeast Asia. During those warmer periods, ice caps were small and sea levels were high; so, many areas were cut off from each other. Corridors for human contact were periodically opened and closed. In glacial ages the sea level dropped as much as 100 meters (330 feet), and new coast lines and land bridges appeared. Some areas, notably Madagascar, New Zealand, Australia, and New Guinea were never colonized by modern humans. Only when modern humans finally did arrive did those areas become populated.
Skeletal specimens indicated that by 160 KYA, Homo sapiens sapienswere present throughout Africa. About 120-100 KYA the African stock started to spread from Africa north into the Middle East, to Europe in a second wave about 40 KYA, to Sri Lanka and China about 30 KYA, to Japan about 20 KYA, to Madagascar, New
Male Cro-Magnon skull (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Zealand, and Polynesia around 12 KYA. Humans colonized Australia some 60-70 KYA, a considerable feat because there was no land connection to other continents, and they would have had to sail there by water craft. 50 KYA they occupied rock shelters. 40 KYA they practiced burial ceremonials. At the time, they lived in a fertile land of trees and lakes that has since become a desert. Human-built structures have been found in Papua-New Guinea from as far back as 30 KYA, but evidence of stone tools is only dated to 10 KYA. After dispersal through the world, regional changes—races—developed.
Stringer and Matthews state that it is “generally assumed that the first colonizers [of the Americas] traveled across the Bering Strait between Siberia and Alaska.” They were probably following wild reindeer herds. During the period between 25-11 KYA, Beringia, the dry land bridge, was 900 miles wide. Many may have traveled by island hopping on boats, very similar to present day kayaks. In Clovis, New Mexico archeologists and paleoanthropologists have found a distinctive stone tool culture industry dated to 12-13 KYA which may have contributed to the extinction of elephants, horses, camels, and ground sloths. Evidence of pre-Clovis colonies have been found in South America contemporaneously with Clovis; and in Monte Verde, southern Chili, a culture flourished as far back as 14.5 KYA. Traveling overland would have required entrance into Alaska as early as 20-30 KYA. Many experts accept an alternative view that those southern-most colonizers traveled along the west coast from Alaska to southern Chili by boat.
All branches of study have confirmed that there were multiple culturally diverse populations separated across the Americas, and, indeed, that DNA composition differs. For example, there is no evidence that European ancestors contributed to the gene pool south of the northern Mexico border, but haplogroup X2, found in some northern Amerindian groups, has been traced back to areas in the Mediterranean and southern Europe and India. Human fossils dated to 9 KYA have been found in North, Central, and South America. Other fossil remains in North America have been dated to several different periods, the latest being about 9 KYA. All the oldest ancestral Americans were from Asia. It appears that subsequent colonizers were the more definite ancestors of modern day Native Americans and that they came as a result of multiple migrations and as the result of isolation and regionalization, i.e., racial evolution. It is generally accepted that the last of these migrations was 12.5-15 KYA, but there are researchers who believe that there is evidence of migrations 20 and 30 KYA. continued…