Saharan Corridors and Their Role in the Evolutionary Geography of ‘Out of Africa I’

Abstract

In any discussion of hominin dispersal it is possible, and important, to examine the event at many different scales. This paper examines the initial dispersal out of Africa at the scale of populations rather than species, looks at dispersal between ecological zones rather than continents, and considers dispersal within Africa prior to any dispersal out of Africa. Before hominins could disperse out of Africa they needed to disperse out of their likely area of endemism in sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa, the most likely departure point for Eurasia. Prior to the Middle Pleistocene, successful long term colonizations of North Africa by hominins were very rare, and apparently less successful than their colonizations of Eurasia. The Early Pleistocene hominin dispersal into Eurasia was most probably along the western coast of the Red Sea. The ability of hominins to successfully disperse into Eurasia and successfully colonize northern continents was made possible by the ecological and climatic diversity within Africa.