Paul Mellars: University of Cambridge Department of Archaeology

Research over the past ten years in both DNA studies and archaeology has provided some remarkable new insights into the origins of biologically and behaviourally modern human populations, and their widespread dispersal from Africa to the rest of the world around 60,000 years ago.

The combination of DNA studies and recent finds of skeletal remains show that essentially ‘modern’ humans had emerged in Africa by at least 150-200,000 years ago, and subsequently spread from Africa into both Asia and Europe around 55-60,000 years ago, where they rapidly replaced the pre-existing “archaic” populations (including the Eurasian Neanderthals) within a matter of a few thousand years.

This talk will focus specifically on the patterns of dispersal of biologically and behaviourally modern humans from Africa, and the nature of the cultural and behavioural adaptations which made this dispersal possible. The aim will be to compare and integrate evidence from both genetic (i.e. DNA) studies and the recent spate of new archaeological discoveries in Africa and elsewhere. The talk will focus on the two questions of (a) why there was a delay of around 100,000 years between the initial emergence of modern Homo sapiens in Africa and their subsequent dispersal to the rest of the world; and (b) what range of behavioural innovations and adaptations allowed the widespread geographical dispersal of modern humans into a range of new and sharply contrasting environments, and the rapid replacement of the pre-existing ‘archaic’ populations in these regions, within such a short space of time. How far these behavioural innovations can be attributed to a major neurological change, and how far to simple cumulative ‘feedback’ processes of technological, social and other behavioural changes remains a central and critical question for future research.
http://www.bec.ucla.edu/MellarsDispersalModel.pdf