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Science 12 January 2007:
Vol. 315. no. 5809, p. 158
DOI: 10.1126/science.315.5809.158e
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Some evidence implies that modern humans spread out from Africa some 50,000 years ago and reached central and western Europe about 40,000 years ago. The colonization of northern Europe and Asia has been more difficult to date; northwestern Europe was covered in ice, but the land areas to the east were more open but still frigid (see the Perspective by Goebel). Anikovich et al. (p. 223) now show through a comparison of radiocarbon and luminescence dating and paleomagnetic data that a paleolithic archaeological site on the Don River, Russia (about 400 miles south of Moscow) dates to about 45,000 years ago. Although there are many fossils from this time scattered throughout Europe and Asia, ones from Africa for comparison and to test this hypothesis are scarce.Grine et al. (p. 226) have dated a skull first discovered in 1952 from Hofmeyr, South Africa, to about 36,000 years ago based on luminescence data of attached quartz. The skull displays several features that are more primitive than contemporaneous European skulls but is consistent with the emergence of modern humans from sub-Saharan Africa.




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