The Guardian is relaying this morning the publication of a new paper (Kuhlwilm et al. 2016) which established that a population that diverged early from other modern humans in Africa contributed genetically to the ancestors of Neanderthals from the Altai Mountains roughly 100,000 years ago.
This finding will have important repercussions on palaeontologists' understanding of early Homo sapiens dispersal out of Africa, as it means that at least one migration of H. sapiens had left Africa for Asia 40,000 years earlier than what current theories held.
I had explained two years ago in my article What were really Neanderthals like and how much did we inherit from them? that 'the first migration of Homo sapiens into Europe could have started as early as 100,000 years ago, albeit in such small numbers that no archeological trace of it could be found to date.' It looks like I was right, although I was referring to small migrations to Europe via the Middle East and the Gibraltar Strait. But obviously once they reach Ukraine or Russia what is to prevent them from going all the way to the Altai and Mongolia ? They were nomadic hunter-gatherers after all, following the herds of large animals like mammoths.
This finding will have important repercussions on palaeontologists' understanding of early Homo sapiens dispersal out of Africa, as it means that at least one migration of H. sapiens had left Africa for Asia 40,000 years earlier than what current theories held.
I had explained two years ago in my article What were really Neanderthals like and how much did we inherit from them? that 'the first migration of Homo sapiens into Europe could have started as early as 100,000 years ago, albeit in such small numbers that no archeological trace of it could be found to date.' It looks like I was right, although I was referring to small migrations to Europe via the Middle East and the Gibraltar Strait. But obviously once they reach Ukraine or Russia what is to prevent them from going all the way to the Altai and Mongolia ? They were nomadic hunter-gatherers after all, following the herds of large animals like mammoths.