How did we get here?

People are everywhere. Seriously we're like a bloody ants nest, every continent, every mountain, every habitable area. We're all over it. Even in place where humans really shouldn't be able to survive like the icy depths of Siberia or the scorching dunes of the Sahara, there's always a group of humans to be found just hanging in there at the limits of survival.

But how did we get here? It's an age old question that has perplexed even the greatest minds among us, with some looking to nature, some looking to religion and some even looking to the expanse of space above us! So today I'm going to talk about how humans spread all across the world from our humble beginnings in Africa! (You weren't expecting that were you?)

One thing that most people agree on in this area is that we came from Africa. Even among deeply religious people it is often accepted purely due to the extensive fossil evidence that shows our ancestors living there 2 million years ago. So humans popped up in Africa, and by humans I mean something like Australopithecus which wasn't really human but was nearly there.

Now as anyone who has been out in the wilderness or played a video game will know, humans have a tendency to explore. Whether its because they got hungry, curious or there just wasn't enough room, these early humans began to spread out and settle all over Africa. At the same time there were a lot of potential candidates for humanity existing at the same time, three of the largest being homo erectus, homo neanderthalensis and of course, homo sapien.

Homo erectus did quite well for itself, although it was really more of a stepping stone to more advanced species. Despite the fact that its brain wasn't enormous and it was only the first species to walk on two legs, it still managed to inhabit basically all of Africa and then eventually spread to what are now Saudi Arabia and Spain. From Saudi Arabia, they spread all throughout the middle East and Southern Asia, eventually even managing to get about halfway through Indonesia which is a pretty mazing achievement. This map shows their progress:


Next up is probably the most famous other human - the Neanderthal (homo neanderthalensis). These guys were much closer to modern humans in terms of evolution, in fact their DNA is less than 0.5% different to ours and there was a lot of cross breeding between the two species. In fact they are so close to our own species that they are often classified as a subspecies of homo sapiens. Ultimately, however, the dominant genome of homo sapiens caused the Neanderthals to die out either through absorption by interbreeding or maybe violent conflict. Either way they're not about any more and nobody is certain as to why.

But how far did Neanderthals get? They left Africa through Saudi Arabia much like homo erectus, but they took a completely different direction afterwards. Instead of sticking to warmer climates around the equator, they headed for what is now central Europe and north western Asia. However there is one catch that didn't really effect our upright amigos in the equatorial regions, the Earth was in the middle of a little cold period at that time. An ice age in fact.

This ice age limited the distance that the Neanderthals could go North as even areas further south than Russia could have been completely uninhabitable due to the cold. This pushed them further West towards the popular holiday destinations of Spain, France, Portugal and the like. They did this a long time before humans were even considering it and were habiting a big section of Eurasia  This is the sort of region they ended up in:

So homo erectus did surprisingly well for such an early species and Neanderthals probably could have done better if it wasn't for the pesky glaciers all over the place, but what about homo sapiens? How did we get here and there and everywhere?

We started off just like everyone else, in Africa. And in what was probably some sort of tradition at this point, we took the route out though the middle east and Spain. However instead of going anywhere really new, we just sort of hung around with our relatives in the areas already established as habitats, south Eurasia, Africa and the Philippines.

However shock and horror, about 60000 years ago there was another cold snap, but this one was pretty big and effected everything. It is thought that this cold snap reduced the population of humanity to under 10000, meaning we were hanging by a thread. However this ended and conditions eventually began to finally improve.

Branching out from the Philippines, humans made the next big leap in migration by managing to get to Australia and Indonesia, forming colonies about 50000 years ago.

When the ice age finally began to recede, a little after 50000 years ago, settlers finally began to poise themselves to explore and settle in the cold climates of northern Europe and Asia, A feat that was previously impossible due to climates that would freeze everyone really really fast.

However, a group of Asian homo sapiens then made the next great leap about 20000 years ago where they discovered an enormous ice bridge in north East Russia. In crossing it they became the first people on Earth to reach the Americas and colonies formed either side of the Rockies, eventually stretching down through Mexico to South America as well.

Of course there are places like Madagascar and New Zealand which we didn't colonise for a long time later until society had developed enough to invent boats, However from then on out, humans had colonies and civilisations on every continent except Antarctica. They which thrived and grew and squabbled and divided themselves with religion and politics and war and finally became this divided mess that we're living in today.

Humans used to be united, maybe not on an individual scale, but as a species, they would devote themselves to the cause of survival even managing to bounce back from being reduced to a few thousand in a cold, perilous world with nothing but their own brains to keep them alive. One day maybe we will put aside the borders and selfishness that divides out world currently and learn to live live this again but for the moment, lets just enjoy the good in this strange, broken world.

Thanks again for reading guys :) see you soon!