this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2026
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Anthropology

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The Spread of Homo sapiens (upload.wikimedia.org)
submitted 1 day ago by Innerworld@lemmy.world to c/anthropology@mander.xyz
12 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This map shows the spread of Homo sapiens out of Africa and across the globe, with very approximate dates.

Author: Altaileopard in 2006

top 12 comments
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[–] Hegar@fedia.io 4 points 1 day ago

Several issues here:

50Kya is a big pulse of human expansion in Australia, but arrival is reckoned at 60-65kya. Some even claim 80k+, but that fucks with out of africa dates.

That 30k -> 1500 line for NZ is deceptive. That expansion actually starts in southern taiwan 3-5kya, or luzon 2.5kya if you count from the lapita culture, but not from new guinea.

15kya is the major clovis expansion in the americas but like australia initial arrival was much earlier, maybe 22-25kya.

100kya for the middle east is not the earliest sapiens presence in the area, but it's also not the wave that extant sapiens (us) descended from either, that's generally reckoned at 50-70kya.

[–] 1dalm@lemmings.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think it's such a funny quark of history that the Polynesians, despite their incredible sea exploration abilities, just apparently completely missed Australia.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't think they "missed" it. I think it happened with Australia the same as here in South America: Polynesians were aware of the existence of those lands, sometimes even traded with the locals, but long-term settlements would be impossible because those locals would kick them out. And the locals couldn't invade Polynesian lands either because the "lands" in question were the sea, and they'd rather focus on land tech instead.

[–] 1dalm@lemmings.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't know. There is linguistic, archeological and genetic evidence that the Polynesians traded with the South Americans, but I don't think there is nearly as robust evidence for Australia.

Current evidence as I understand it is really just as that map depicts it. That they went straight from Indonesia to New Zealand, and just missed Australia.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well, it's also possible they simply missed it out. But I find it unlikely given how skilled they were at navigation, and the East Australian Current:

A third possibility is that they were aware of those lands, but for some reason didn't bother with them. Either due to conflict with the locals, or because neither side had anything to benefit the other.

[–] 1dalm@lemmings.world 2 points 1 day ago

I personally think your third possibility is the least likely. I just find it unimaginable that there would not have been any cultural exchange at all of the two peoples knew about each other.

I can imagine human beings, even extremely capable ones, just missing things. In fact that happened a lot. There were many European cultures that had the technical capability to sail to the Americans for thousands of years before they did it. And there were clothes in the Americas that had the capability to go the other way, but they didn't.

As someone else pointed out, there is a similar story for Madagascar. There were plenty of cultures that could have discovered it for centuries that just didn't. Similar stories with countless other islands.

Honestly, I think it's more surprising that the indigenous Australian peoples discovered the continent when they did. They were the only animals to make the jump across the straight.

[–] ptychodus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The map is out of date for the Americas. ~22kbp footprints in NM, among other earlier dates.

[–] ace_garp@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

And for Australia 50,000 is old data. The current timeline is 60-70,000 years of human habitation.

[–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Why did it take so long for humans to get to Madagascar? Even Australia was reached much sooner, and that's so much farther away and separated by wider oceans.

[–] lvxferre@mander.xyz 3 points 1 day ago

Apparently Madagascar was discovered before this picture says, potentially as early as 8500 BCE. The date there is for unambiguous continued human presence, that starts at 490 CE.

[–] hector@lemmy.today 3 points 1 day ago

It was all dry land to Indonesia, inbetween indonesia and australia there is deep ocean, but during the ice age it was lowland all the way out through indonesia.

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 day ago

If those 'dates' are supposed to be 'years ago' in those unlabeled numbers NZ is wrong, it should be 800-1000.

Also the Polynesian diaspora is woefully underrepresented by that tiny misshapen Pacific Ocean.