Out of Africa

Homo sapiens (us) left Africa approximately 50,000 years ago and populated the entire world over the next 40,000 years.  The scientific concept that all humans descended from a people group in Africa is called the Out of Africa model of human origins. Mitochondrial haplotypes document the paths of human migration as if people left behind pieces of paper with their names on them (Figure 13‑23).

After scientists mapped the human genome in different populations in the world, scientists were able to determine ancient ancestry and migration. The most effective tools are the Y-chromosome DNA in males and mitochondrial DNA in females The Y chromosome DNA is passed directly from father to son and is unmixed with the mother’s genes, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed directly from mother to daughter and is unmixed with the father’s genes. Thus, these sets of DNA aren’t reshuffled during reproduction, and clear lines of male and female ancestry can be established by studying these two DNA sets. Y-chromosome haplogroups (male) have similar migration paths.

Prior to DNA and fossil evidence for the Out of Africa model, the most popular hypothesis of the origin of Homo sapiens was the Multiregional model, which was that modern humans evolved from different Homo erectus ancestors in different parts of the world. The supposed justification for the Multiregional model was that humans seemed to appear almost simultaneously in the fossil record approximately 40,000 years ago across Asia, Europe, and Africa. They did not realize that the apparently simultaneous appearance was due to the rapid spread of Homo sapiens across Europe and Asia after they left Africa.

Homo sapiens probably left Africa during an ice age period when there was lower sea level and a land bridge that connected Yemen and Ethiopia in the southern part of the Red Sea; however, the people who left Africa 50,000 years ago might not have been the first. There might have been other short forays out of Africa prior to the major human migration out of Africa. Anatomically modern humans were found in Jebel Faya in the United Arab Emirates 125,000 years ago and in the Qafzeh and Skhul caves in Israel approximately 120,000 years ago. Recent research on bifacial elements (hand axes, etc…) in Arabia shows that the humans in this region (Arabian Peninsula) had bifacial technologies that were different from the African technologies. The technologies never changed so the researchers argue that these people remained in Arabia and did not mix with the African human population. They might have survived dry climatic periods in oases such as what was then the empty Persian Gulf.

Humans migrated from Asia to America approximately 17,000 years ago across a land bridge that formed in the Bering Strait during the last ice age. During the Wisconsin glaciation, sea level was more than 100 m lower than it is today, and a large land area was exposed in what is now the ocean between Alaska and Asia. The original populations that crossed the Bering Strait became the Native Americans. Native Americans quickly spread across the Americas and reached the southern tip of South America by 15,000 years ago. The Bering Land Bridge (Figure 13‑24) formed again 13,000 years ago. This time it was the Eskimos and Aleuts who walked across to the American continent and populated Alaska and northern Canada. The genome of a 12.7 ka fossilized boy in Montana (Anzick boy) established that all native Americans are from the same genome and descended from the peoples who came across the Siberian/Alaska land bridge.

The untouched Seri culture in northwest Mexico at Kino Bay and Tiburon Island (Figure 13‑25 and Figure 13‑26)  provided a case study of an almost untouched Mesolithic culture when anthropologist William McGee visited them in the late 19th century. Mashem (Figure 13‑27) was McGee’s interpreter.

The Seri hunted deer, rabbit, antelope, jaguars, peccary, and mountain sheep. The Seri acquired a high level of skill and athleticism. They were accurate with bow and arrow (Figure 13‑28), even while running.[2] They had a unique posture for accurate shooting on the run. They hunted in groups of five to eight men, surrounded the animal, and herded it into the camp, where they shot it. There was no refrigeration so the men, women, and children gathered together and ate the dead animal within a day or two.[3] They also showed skill in their hunting tools. They carefully crafted bows and straight arrows with arrowheads.

The Seri harvested many food resources from the sea. They ate “turtles, fish, mollusks, water-fowl, and other food of the sea”[4] The Infiernillo Channel is an extremely dangerous waterway. Harvesting turtles and fish in this waterway required intelligence, athleticism, and skill. The Seri hunted in this waterway in small balsa boats (Figure 13‑29). The fishermen stood in the boats and harpooned giant turtles and speared fish. The Seri had specialized harpoons for turtles and spears for fish.

The Seri crafted rock, bone, clay, and turtle tools and containers (Figure 13‑30). They made ropes from mesquite fibers. They used all parts of the turtle to make bags, containers, and other useful items. Their clay pots were finely crafted with extremely thin walls. They wove beautiful baskets from fibers in desert plants.

It was a challenge to live in the natural world, and people all over the world developed the skills and knowledge necessary to survive in varied and difficult environments.  The complexity of thought of humans throughout the world indicates that this same level of intelligence was in the ancestral group from which they spread out from Africa.

In addition to similar levels of intelligence, indigenous cultures had similar religious, ethical, community, and family constructs. In general, Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic cultures such as the Seri were divided into groups of 25 to 100 people. One of the interesting aspects of indigenous cultures is that they did not have class systems. There were no slaves. Some cultures were patrilineal and others were matrilineal and governed by women, but there was a sharing of responsibility and equal status among members of the communities.

Indigenous cultures were based on the family unit. As with the communities, there was a sharing of responsibility in marriages and families because everyone needed to work together to survive. In general, the marriage initiation and ceremony followed a defined procedure, and rules governing marriages were strict. For example, McGee described the Seri marital practices.

 “The most striking and significant social facts discovered among the Seri relate to marriage customs…As noted repeatedly elsewhere, the tribal population is preponderantly feminine, so that polygyny naturally prevails; the number of wives reaches three or possibly four, averaging about two, though the younger warriors commonly have but one, and then- are always a number of spouseless (widowed) dames but no single men of marriageable age. So far as could be ascertained, no special formalities attend the taking of supernumerary wives, who are usually widowed sisters of the first spouse; it seems to be practically a family affair, governed by considerations of convenience rather than established regulations—an irregularity combining with other facts to suggest that polygyny is incidental, and perhaps of comparatively recent origin.

The primary mating of the Seri is attended by observances so elaborate as to show that marriage is one of the profoundest sacraments of the tribe, penetrating the innermost recesses of tribal thought, and interwoven with the essential fibers of tribal existence. Few if any other peoples devote such anxious care to their mating as do the Seri;1 and among no other known tribe or folk is the moral aspect of conjugal union so rigorously guarded by collective action and individual devotion.

The initial movement toward formal marriage seems to be somewhat indefinite (or perhaps, rather, spontaneous); according to Mashem it may be made either by the prospective groom or else by his father, though not directly by the maiden or her kinswomen. In any event the prerequisites for the union are provisionally determined in the suitor's family; these relate to the suitability of age, the propriety of the clan relation, etc; for no stripling may seriously contemplate matrimony until he has entered manhood (apparently corresponding with the warrior class), nor can he mate in his own totem, though all other clans of the tribe are apparently open to him; while the maiden must have passed (apparently by a considerable time) her puberty feast.” [5]

Faith was generally an important part of indigenous cultures, which they commonly linked with important parts of their culture and environment. For example, the Seri, who valued the turtle, had the following perspective on God and creation.

“We believe there was one god, who was also the god of the Comcáac who ordered the animals to dive for some sand to use to construct the world. Many of the animals tried until they could no more, and then there was the turtle. When it was his turn to find the sand, he dove down and buried himself. He surfaced with the sand, and with that sand the world was created.” [6] 

Videos on the Seri and other indigenous cultures, and traditional views of life, culture, faith, and the environment can be found at (17) sacred land film project - YouTube  https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sacred+land+film+project

References

[1] Sacred Land Film Project. Tahejoc and Comcaac Territory. Accessed at Tahéjöc and the Comcáac Territory – Mexico – Sacred Land, https://sacredland.org/tahejoc-and-the-comcaac-territory-mexico/

[2] McGee, W. J. (1898). The Seri Indians: Seventeenth annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Washington, D.C

[3] McGee, Seri,

[4] McGee, Seri

[5] McGee, Seri

[6] Sacred Land Film Project. Tahejoc and Comcaac Territory. Accessed https://sacredland.org/tahejoc-and-the-comcaac-territory

mexico/#:~:text=The%20traditional%20Seri%20religion%20is,its%20knowledge%20of%20these%20places.

Banner

San people (bushmen) in southern Africa starting a fire by hand. Credit: Isewell. Used here per CC BY-SA 2.5.