Which Way Did They Go? Using Individual-Based Models to Identify Out of Africa Hominin Dispersal Routes

Summary

There is a broad paleoanthropological consensus that hominins left Africa multiple times during the Pleistocene, but the geographic routes through which they exited the continent remains unclear. Although the Sinai Land Bridge and the Strait of Bab-al-Mandab on the southern end of the Red Sea are commonly implicated as the likely pathways used by early humans during their expansion out of Africa, the evidence supporting each route is still much debated. Here, we identify viable pathways for hominin dispersal from the Ethiopian-Afar basin toward the Sinai using Individual-Based Modeling (IBM) and computational statistics. We computed empirical probabilities for modern hunter-gatherers to occupy habitats with variable elevations, slopes, streamflow and Net Primary Productivities to input into our IBM. Results show that hominins could have followed multiple paths during their expansion out of the Ethiopian-Afar rift basins toward the Levant, including the western littoral of the Red Sea basin. This study sheds light on the geographic areas that may have facilitated hominin dispersal out of Africa, and lends support to the notion that coastal landscapes may have served as dispersal conduits during global expansion of hominins. Furthermore, the models identify key target areas for future survey.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21567