Out of Asia: Where did we come from?

Where did humanity as a species come from?

By the end of the 19th century scientists had accepted Darwin’s theory of evolution. So what does this mean for humanity?

Nowadays humans live (almost) all over the world, but where did the first humans live? Given that we all belong to one species scientists thought that we can’t have evolved independently everywhere, but that there was an original cradle of humanity and later humans embarked on their quest to populate (almost) all continents.

The first evidence for early humans was found in south-east Asia. Bias and false ideas of how early humans should have looked like led to a long period of time in which people believed humanity stems out of Asia. But in the end scientists found evidence of earlier humans in Africa.