The origin of modern humans is a topic that is often discussed a lot in terms of where we came from and how we spread to all corners of the earth.
A TikTok account under the name Curiosity Capsule might have just answered those questions in a minute and five seconds.
The video claims that modern humans first came from three African countries – Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.
“This is how humans migrated out of Africa. The great migration began in East Africa, particularly around present-day Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.
“Where homo sapiens began to move out to the Levant region and the Arabian peninsula, using narrow land bridges 100,000 years ago.”
And according to experts, that’s about right. Some of the oldest fossils were found in Ethiopia. The Omo I remains were discovered in the late 1960s in the lower Omo valley of southern Ethiopia.
At the time, scientists believed that the fossils were around 200,000 years old. Yet, a recent reassessment by a team of international scientists led by the University of Cambridge revealed that the fossils are older than a colossal volcanic eruption that took place 230,000 years ago.
Researchers also discovered fossils in Morocco that dated back even further than the Omo I remains.
However, according to the journal site nature.com, East Africa is where most scientists place our species’ origins, as DNA studies of present-day populations around the globe point to an African origin some 200,000 years ago – the skulls from Ethiopia.
So now we understand where humans come from. How did we spread across the world?
Curiosity Capsule’s video continued by explaining that the original humans “followed the coast of the Red Sea to take advantage of food sources and freshwater.” Once they did that, they split up and moved towards two directions – Europe and South Asia, interbreeding with other species known as Neanderthal – traces are still found in some humans today.
It, of course, didn’t stop there. The group that headed towards Asia split even further, according to the video, with some heading northward to east Asia and the other group heading as far as Australia.
It finalised: “Then came one of the boldest steps in humanity’s journey, crossing into the Americas. Around 15,000 – 20,000 years ago, humans crossed the Bering land bridge from Siberia to Alaska, and from there, they spread southward, eventually reaching the southern tip of South America.”
According to the Australian Museum, there have been genetic studies which support the idea of homo sapiens making their way out of Africa over 220,000 years ago. Stone tools dating back 74,000 years ago were uncovered in India, and ones dating back between 70,000 and 80,000 years were found in both Yemen and the UAE.
The tools found resemble Middle Stone Age technology that derives from Africa, whilst some appeared to look like ones used by Neanderthals in the Levant.
After over 100,000 years, humans split into at least four species – homo sapiens in Africa and the Middle East, Homo neanderthalensis in Europe and Homo floresiensis in southern Asia.