Revolution, modernity, and the dispersal of Homo sapiens beyond Africa

Abstract

In the recent past, evolutionarily speaking, every other kind of hominin, from the Neanderthals of western Eurasia to the ‘hobbits’ of Flores, became extinct while our species prospered and spread across the world, from remote islands to high mountains. Understanding how, why, and when this global spread of Homo sapiens occurred is a major question in human evolutionary studies. While there is broad agreement on our African origin and subsequent global expansion, currently fossil, genetic, and archaeological data and perspectives on the details of this process are, if not actively contradictory, then certainly uncomfortable bedfellows. In part, this uncertainty reflects the profound spatial and temporal biases in currently available archaeological, fossil, and genetic samples. However, there are also methodological and theoretical aspects which limit understanding. Two central examples, reviewed in this paper, are the challenges of accurately dating palaeoanthropological sites and the continuing influence of the outdated concept of a ‘Human Revolution’ and the related concept of ‘modernity’, in both cultural and biological forms.