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This paper suggests that there was an unsuccessful attempt by Homo sapiens to spread into Eurasia over 200,000 years ago, then resurgent Neanderthals re-occupied the territory previously held by Homo sapiens.
Only after a population bottleneck in Africa around 70,000 years ago did Homo sapiens have the increased complexity of culture, language and technology that gave them a competitive edge over other hominins.
isn't this the same picture as in the Levant?
Yes, Homo sapiens seem to have made another unsuccessful attempt to spread into Eurasia about 100,000 years ago in the Levant. By about 70,000 years ago Neanderthals had re-claimed that territory as well. Only on their next (third?) attempt about 60,000 years ago did Homo sapiens disperse throughout Eurasia and Sahul, eventually displacing all other hominins.
who says this happened in Africa?
I favor the Arab peninsula
I think the circumstantial evidence favours sub-Saharan Africa because that's where there is the most genetic diversity today, much more than the rest of the world combined, and where the most ancient branches of Y-DNA and MtDNA seem to be. If it was the Arabian peninsula, the evidence suggests they went back to Africa before they spread across the rest of Eurasia.
Arabia may have been a homeland for our more distant ancestors. Millions of years ago Africa and Arabia were joined, but separated from Eurasia. Some of the earliest ape fossils are found in Arabia, before there were any apes in Eurasia. The Zagros mountains were formed by the collision of Afro-Arabia and Eurasia.
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