Does anyone really know where Cro-Magnon originated, or migrated from, and whether or not they were Caucasoid?

Question

That is, besides the fact that they were named after a French cave, which is where they migrated to....

Answer 1

You may get something here and there are links to other pages.

Answer 2

The name "Cro-Magnon" is derived from the region in France where a paleoanthropological dig found skeletal remains used as a "type" specimen for anatomically modern human beings.  

"Caucasoid" refers features of the skull (like, cephalic index, and the plane formed by the front to the skull) that are thought to be typical of Europeans, but is in fact extremely misleading, and probably psuedo-scientific (it casts a net broad enough to incude both Scandanavians and Ethiopians - which has little of interest to say about genetic and ethnic relations).  I think it is safe to say that the Cro-Magnon people were sufficiently different in an ethnic sense from modern people that it would be meaningless to "lump them in" with any modern population of humans.

Answer 3

There are four questions there. 1.- It seems that we could be sure that the WHOLE human race (including Cro-Magnon) iriginated from Africa. 2.- Coming out of Africa (nothing to do with the movie!), the first humanoids came to France after quite a lot of travelling all  through Europe or parts of Asia. 3.- I have a lot of problems with the word Caucasian: its origin has very little to do with science and a lot with plain old racism (Meiners, Blumenbach or Gobineau). Since skin coloration is genetic adaptation to sunlight or lack thereof, for all we know or should care, our Cro-Magnon ancestors were probably darker than some of us are but we are still of the same family. 4.- The last question is your first: Does anyone REALLY know ? As with ALL science, today's certitudes will very likely be tomorrow's past errors. After all, Thomas Kuhn wrote very well about these recurrent "paradigm shifts".  Claude

Answer 4

Whichever model (if either) is correct-This is a copy and paste from the Smithsonian about the Out of Africa/ Multiregional or ?.

Answer 5

According to the movie 1,000000 BC, starring Rachael Welch, they all looked a bit like your Avatar, so you can make up your own mind.