• Question: apparantly i heard that we all originated from africa is this true?

    Asked by 11880t to Lily, Mark, Paul, Sarah on 23 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Mark Roberts

      Mark Roberts answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      It is certainly a theory (called the out of africa theory) that we did and fossil evidence suggests that too – but remember that the world looked very different then due to the way the earth’s surface has changed so migration would have been easier

      Given we as a speices are a result of evolution from another species it’s likely that occured in one place and then was spread by reproduction – hence this idea of a single origin. At the moment based on the evidence it it thought to be affrica – but there is a a competing model called the multi-region theory, though that is thought to be less likely

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans

    • Photo: Paul Roche

      Paul Roche answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      I think anthropologists (the scientists who work on this sort of thing) have traced the first “modern humans” back to Africa, so yes, we all originated from there I guess.

    • Photo: Lily Asquith

      Lily Asquith answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      Yes, we think it is, because the earliest human-like remains have been found there. Ancient human remains that have been found in other parts of the world are all more recent and have changed slightly from those earliest ones found in Africa.

    • Photo: Sarah Bardsley

      Sarah Bardsley answered on 23 Jun 2010:

      Some scientists believe that humans and apes from Africa had a common ancestor. Also genetic studies have shown that human mitochondrial DNA – passed along the female like – originates from African. So its one theory which has some good evidence.

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