What is the population history of modern Homo sapiens, and how did that history contribute to the current structure of human populations?
Information about the history of the human species comes from two main sources: bones and artifacts gathered from archaeological sites, and the distribution of genetic variants in the human population today. Both sources of information are fragmentary, but both are converging on the same general story. The earliest fossil skull with features similar to those of anatomically modern humans (including a rounded braincase, reduced brow ridges, and a distinct chin) comes from Ethiopia’s Omo River and is estimated to be about 190,000 years old. Later fossils (with estimated ages) that have at least some modern characteristics have been found elsewhere in Ethiopia (150,000 years), in the Middle East (100,000 years), in southern Africa (100,000 years), in Australia (40,000 years), in eastern Europe (35,000), and in the Americas (13,000 years). These discoveries suggest that anatomically modern humans evolved in eastern Africa and then spread out to occupy the rest of Africa, Asia, Europe, and
