Data about the existence of microindustry 2.3 Ma BP in East Africa allow a suggestion that the first migrants from Africa practiced not only the Oldowan (pre-Oldowan) lithic culture, but also the microlithic culture. This assumption is supported by the archaeological evidence from Israel: the microindustry from Evron is dated to <2.4 Ma BP (Ronen, 1991, 1999), the Bisat Ruhama site is dated approximately to 1 Ma (Zeidner, Ronen, Burdukiewicz, 2003) and other sites with microlithic industries in Eurasia are dated back to the interval between 1 Ma and 300 ka PB (Derevianko, 2006c). In China, over 10 sites with microtools dating to 1.7 to 1 Ma BP were located in the Nihewan Depression.

 

Researchers assess the early human penetration into Eurasia as a fairly wide chronological range from 2 to 1 Ma BP (Fig. 2). In my opinion, the first two global migrations from Africa into Eurasia took place within the chronological range between 2 and 1.5 Ma BP. One of the main reasons was the changing ecology of the human habitat in Eastern Africa after 2.5 Ma BP. Cooling of the climate led to drastic reduction of forest areas and to a significant extension of the savanna area. Colonization of Eurasia by the most ancient populations cannot be viewed as some kind of a pattern-governed process. At the end of Pliocene – beginning of Pleistocene, Africa was connected with the Arabian Peninsula in the north, as well as in the east. At that time, environmental conditions in Eastern Africa, Near East and Arabia were similar, and humans practically remained in the same ecological niche even upon arrival in the new continent.

 

The earliest global migration from Africa into Eurasia cannot be considered as a one-time process. The emergence of the first people in Eurasia and colonization of large areas in Asia and Europe took place in the form of gradual occupation of the niches most favorable for living, with later relocation into neighboring regions. The vector of this movement was determined by the ecology of the adjacent territories. The most important point in the first global migration flow was the necessity of expansion of large numbers of people beyond Africa for the purpose of biological survival under the conditions of divergence. There are no facts to disprove the repeated expansion of ancient humans of several physical types from Africa into Eurasia. A cladistical analysis of Homo floresiensis has shown that this is an early separate species of the Homo genus, which evolved after H. rudolfensis and before H. habilis or an early Homo species, which evolved after H. habilis (Argue, et al., 2009).

 

The most numerous population of the ancient Homo, which expanded beyond Africa, was linked to the Homo-ergaster-erectus and the Oldowan industry. It is very probable that the second ancient migration wave of humans with a microindustry belonged to another species (subspecies?) of Homo, which could have settled not only in East Asia (China), but also Southeast Asia and survived in the form of Homo floresiensis as a result of the divergence process.

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