Southern Africa and Modern Human Origins

Abstract

Together with human fossils from eastern and northern Africa, southern African specimens show that anatomically modern or near-modern people were present by 100,000 years ago, when only the Neandertals occupied Europe and different, equally nonmodern people lived in eastern Asia. However, the artifacts found with early modern or near-modern African fossils imply nonmodern, Neandertal-like behavior. Artifactual markers of fully modern behavior appeared in Africa between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago, and only then were modern Africans able to expand to Eurasia, where they swamped or replaced the Neandertals and other nonmodern humans. Archaeological food debris from the western and southern coasts of South Africa suggest that an enhanced ability to hunt and gather accompanied the artifactual advance after 50,000 years ago.

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