Landing at the Origin - There is a Trace of Africa in all of us...

We are the descendants of a few small groups of tropical Africans who united in the face of adversity, not only to the point of survival but to the development of a sophisticated social interaction and culture expressed through many forms.

At the end of this 160,000 year-long journey however, alterity remains alive and well in many cultures. The purpose of my mapping project is to show that we are all from the same origin, and there is one race, called the human race. If everyone knew that we were all related, perhaps people would unite for the betterment of human-kind rather than trying to devise ways to exert authority over the subaltern. There is a trace of Africa in all of us, no matter what our skin color may be.

The map below depicts this journey as explained by the Oxford University professor Stephen Oppenheimer.

Over 160,000 years ago, modern humans, Homo sapiens, lived in Africa. The earliest known archaeological evidence of our mtDNA and Y chromosome ancestors is found in East Africa. For the following 25,000 years, four groups travelled as hunter-gatherers south to the Cape of Good Hope, south-west to the Congo Basin and west to the Ivory Coast, carrying the first generation of mtDNA gene types ‘L1’.

125,000 years ago, a group travelled across a green Sahara through the open northern gate, up to the Nile to the Levant, the countries bordering on the eastern Mediterranean Sea from Turkey to Egypt. The branch that reached the Levant died out by 90,000 years ago. A global freeze-up turned this area and North Africa into extreme desert. This region was later reoccupied by Neanderthal Man.

85,000 years ago a group crossed the mouth of the Red Sea – the Gates of Grief – prior to travelling as beach-combers along the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula toward India.

All non-African people are descended from this group. From Sri Lanka, they continued along the Indian Ocean coast to western Indonesia, then a landmass attached to Asia. Still following the coast they moved around Borneo to South China.

74,000 years ago, super-eruption of Mt. Toba, Sumatra, caused a 6 year nuclear winter and instant 1000 year ice-age with a dramatic population crash, to less than 10,000 adults. Volcanic ash from the eruption up to 15 feet deep covered India and Pakistan. Following the devastation of the Indian subcontinent, repopulation took place. Groups crossed by boat from Timor into Australia and also from Borneo into New Guinea. There was intense cold in the Lower Pleniglacial in the north.

Dramatic warming of the climate 52,000 years ago meant groups were finally able to move north up to the Fertile Crescent returning to the Levant. From there they moved into Europe via the Bosporus in Turkey from 50,000 years ago.

A mini ice age took place during the next 7,000 years, and in the mean time, Arugnacian Upper Paleolithic culture moved from Turkey into Bulgaria, Europe. The new style of stone tools moved up the Danube into Hungary then Austria.

In the next 5,000 years, groups from the east Asian coast moved west through the central Asia steppes towards Northeast Asia. From Pakistan they moved into Central Asia and from Indo-China through Tibet into the Qing-hai Plateau.

Between 40,000 and 25,000 years ago, Central Asians moved west towards Eastern Europe, north into the Arctic Circle and joined East Asians to start the spread into north-east Eurasia.

This period saw the birth of spectacular works of art, as in the Chauvet cave in France. In the following 3,000 years, ancestors of the Native Americans who crossed the Bering land bridge connecting Siberia to Alaska, either passed through the ice corridor reaching Meadowcroft before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), or took the coastal route. During the last Ice Age, Northern Europe, Asia and North America were de-populated, with isolated surviving groups locked in refuges. In North America, the ice corridor closed and the coastal route froze.

During the LGM 18,000 years ago, in North America, south of the ice, groups continued to develop diversity in language, culture and genes as they crossed into South America. Between 15,000 and 12,500 years ago, continued amelioration of the climate. Coastal route recommenced. Simple stone tools such as flakes and cobbles were excavated.

12,500 years ago, reoccupation of North America started from south of the ice going north. In the sub-Arctic 11.500 years ago people moved out from the Beringean refuge to become the Eskimo, Aleuts and Na-Dabe speakers.

Between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago the final collapse of the Ice Age heralded the dawn of agriculture. The Sahara was grassland, as implied by the life-size giraffe petroglyphs in Niger. Recolonization of Britain and Scandinavia also took place in this period.