Technology Linked to Human Migration Out of Africa

One of the world’s first technologies, fire, may have lead to humans migrating out of Africa…

For early homo sapiens, periods of population movement coincided with social advances and tool-making innovation…By contrast, human movements didn’t match as closely with changes in Africa’s climate, such as rainfall variation or other weather issues, as previous research had suggested. The study authors caution, however, that their work doesn’t suggest a specific cause-and-effect relationship. “We see bursts of migration during a period with technological advances, so technology might have led to the migration,” said Zenobia Jacobs, lead researcher from the University of Wollongong in Australia.

Alternatively, migration may have spread new ideas and skills throughout various populations. “It’s like the chicken-and-egg argument—did migration lead to innovation or did innovation stimulate migration?” Jacobs said.

Via NatGeo