Out Of Africa Hypothesis Research Paper

The “Out of Africa” hypothesis is based off the belief that all modern people originated from Africa. Like the multiregional hypothesis, the “Out of Africa” hypothesis place H. sapiens origins in Africa. This hypothesis was founded by Chris Stringer and grew in the early 1990’s while Allan Wilson and Rebecca Cann were researching Mitochondrial DNA. This led them to believe that all modern humans came from a female H. sapien out of Africa. Although the hypothesis became popular in the twentieth century, it was criticized. Some paleoanthropologist accept the hypothesis that one singular archaic population of Homo sapiens had advanced cultural capabilities and replaced other archaic forms of humans somewhere between 200,000 and 60,000 years ago. However some suggest that the “out of Africa” hypothesis is flawed in the sense of molecular evidence.

Charles Darwin was one of the first to propose the “Eve” hypothesis. He suggested that modern humans came from apes in Africa, Thomas Huxley further supported this theory by stating humans share an evolutionary relationship with African apes. Darwin’s theory was supported when fossils of small brained hominoids were found.

This type of DNA material quickly mutates and in turn mutation happens fast. Wilson’s discovery on the human mtDNA showed genetics in humans were much less diverse than chimpanzee’s mtDNA. He believed that with this information we could figure a time and place where we evolved from. This information led him to conclude that modern humans split from a single population while Neanderthals and Homo erectus were extinct. Wilson and Cann concluded that all of modern humans even those with different ancestral backgrounds, all came from “the Mitochondrial Eve” from Africa who originated around 150,000 years