If we all came from Africa, how long did it take to get to Texas?

Question

Essentially, how long have we been evolving?

Answer 1

We never stop evolving. Until we are extinct.

Answer 2

The Clovis people are the earliest culture in North America, and Texas They are dated to 11,000-11,500 BCE That's most likely the time man reached Texas.

The Gault site near Georgetown (great flint there!) is one such Clovis site. The Bonfire Shelter, dated to 12,400-13,000 BCE may represent an earlier culture.

Monte Verde, in the far South of Chile is dated to 12,000 BCE and possibly 33,000 BCE. If so it suggest man was in Texas even earlier.

As for "Essentially, how long have we been evolving?" we as a race have constantly evolved. In fact, given the size of our current population our devlopment is moving at a rapid pace.

Answer 3

The oldest anatomically modern human is about 195,000 years old from Ethiopia. There are sites in America dated at about 50,000 to 60,000 years old, so probably about 145,000 years between Africa and Texas!

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpre...

Answer 4

We have been evolving for probably about 3.5 to 4 billion years from lifeforms more primitive than any bacteria alive today.  It is likely that most modern humans are descended from groups that lived in Africa over 60,000 years ago.  Long before that, the fossil evidence is better for other hominids that lived in Africa like some version of habilis to have been our ancestor.  It only takes hundreds of years to get to Texas and it is not certain when they did but likely not much before 15,000 years ago.

Answer 5

We have been evolving, as humans for millions of years (see first link), but the migration to the Americas occurred about 15,000 years ago (this is variable, depending on the source).

This is a quote from the second link, below.

"Around 120,000 years ago Homo sapiens emerged as a new species, most likely in central East Africa, and from there migrated into the Middle East, south Africa, Europe, central Asia, and finally into the New World. To reach the Bering Strait from Africa by 14,000 years ago, humans would have had to wander no more than one mile every eight years. -- The timing of Ice Age coolings, and the amount they lowered ocean levels, specifies the geologic periods in which it was possible to migrate to land masses otherwise separated by water."

Answer 6

They claim for millions of years.  However, for most of those millions of years, humans were in stasis (meaning NOT evolving). Then one day, one ape woke up and told the next ape, let's evolve.  And they did.  (So goes the fairy tale.)

But, ask Native Americans and they will tell you a different tale.

Answer 7

The Aubrey site is the oldest site in Texas. Dated at 11,600 years before present, it is the oldest accepted (minimally contested) date for a site that contains Clovis stone tools. This essentially makes it the "official" oldest site in the Americas, period. While there are a variety of sites that are claimed to be older, some much older, those dates are much more contentiously contested, for some good and bad reasons. Hey, Monte Verde has some issues with integrity and contamination, though I wish it weren't so.

So the best evidence says that people arrived in Texas 11,600 years ago at the earliest. Genetic evidence says that people could have crossed over across Beringia as early as 18,000 years ago, so people could have been in Texas not too long after that. If we assume they scattered normally, give them a thousand years or so. If we assume they ran like h**l, give them a much shorter time.

Like the rest of us, you'll have to wait and see if we get earlier dates.