What did the first humans to leave Africa look like?

Question

What did the first humans to leave Africa look like?

Answer 1

Some people call the early erectus humans.  They likely didn't look as human as they are often depicted.

This is a depiction of the most primitive and first in the genus homo to leave Africa.  It could have been as hairy as a chimp and would look about as much like a chimp if depicted that way.  It used to be called erectus but now is often given the designation Homo georgicus.

http://www.evolendorig13.narod.ru/HomDma...

Answer 2

Ursula Andress in a fur bikini

Answer 3

black i suppose

Answer 4

Probably a lot like the Khoisan people, who have the worlds most diverse, and therefore oldest, mitochondrial DNA.They are very short, the men are 5'4'' or so, with facial features halfway between African and Chinese.

http://www.loe.org/images/051014/Bushman...

http://www.travel-pictures-gallery.com/p...

You might want to take a look at this site if you are interested in anthropology.

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/

Answer 5

Carly, while your theory is certainly interesting it is somewhat flawed. You see the first Australopithecus species did not appear until about 4.2 million years ago and only in Africa. So I'm afraid you're out by about 220 million years. Incidentally, it is possible to walk from South Africa to the Artic. It may take some time but no boats are required.

Answer 6

They still live in the foot hills of Arkansas!! Oh wait,those are inbreds. They are located in the Rockie Mtns. They are called BIGFOOT!!!

Answer 7

um you and me, just darker

Answer 8

hairy

Answer 9

The first humans to leave Africa - being the cradle of mankind - were probably not homo-sapiens They were almost certainly HAIRY and not, as one answerer stated "darker" [is he assuming that the generic "WE" is lighter?]

Hair was lost once our ancestors had left Africa. When pink, naked homo-sapiens returned to Africa, they will have developed dark pigments to protect their exposed skin. Hair must have been lost where there was less sunlight, (so - further north than Africa) otherwise the ancestors in Africa would have retained it for protection from the sun as did other mammals.

Our closest relatives are the bonobo [closest] and chimpanzee [second closest].

Wikipedia:

The closest living relatives of Homo sapiens are two distinct species of the genus Pan: the Bonobo (Pan paniscus) and the Common Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes). These species share the same common ancestor.

Full genome sequencing resulted in the conclusion that "after 6.5 million years of separate evolution  95 per cent of the DNA sequence is identical between the two Pan species and human.

Wikipedia gives the following:

In paleoanthropology the Out-of-Africa model is one of two accounts of the origin of Homo sapiens. Modern humans evolved in Africa between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago, with members of one branch leaving Africa between 55,000 and 60,000 years ago. These emigrants spread to the rest of the world, replacing (and not interbreeding with) other Homo species already there, such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus.

Answer 10

It is a myth to say that" we came out of Africa" Fossil's have been found all over the planet. Remember Africa was not always Africa, the plates are continually shifting as we speak, breaking apart and joining again somewhere else, so Africa could at one point in time have been where Greenland is now, figuratively speaking that is.There are some people who believe that man has walked the earth for tens of millions of years and plenty of stuff to read up on it if interested. You could begin with the suppressed facts concerning ancient mankind, or, Ancient Traces by Michael Baigent. Jack D.

Answer 11

You are going to force me to guess on this one... but they undoubtedly had dark skin due to being evolved for a tropical climate (if you are referring to Homo sapien.)  The Homo erectus were undoubtedly the 1st humans to leave Africa about 1 million years ago & they evolved into Homo neandertal & other more modern Homo erectus that rivialed Homo sapien in brain size (neandertal having a larger brain than sapien.) Below the neck erectus is almost identical to a robust sapien, while the Neandertal has a very different pelvis & rib cage.  Therefore, some erectus fossiles may be mistaken for sapien & vice versa unless the skull is found.

Regional evolution adherants think the sapiens migrating out of Africa produced some hybrids with both neandertal in Europe & erectus in Asia, thus retaining some of their genes but not mitochondrial or Y chromosome markers.  Some candidate fossiles for neandertal hybrids have been found in Europe & Mungo man of Australia "appears" to be a modern sapien... except that the MtDNA is closer to neandertal, than to modern sapiens. (We haven't obtained DNA from erectus fossiles.)

The out of Africa buffs have DNA on their side in most cases... as DNA testing & the DNA clock indicate an early migration along the coast of Asia & to Australia via the DNA trail of modern sapiens.

I suspect the 1st sapien migrants were about 5' 7", dark of skin & had a pronounced brow ridge like native Australians.

Edit: Mungo man of Australia was burried at least 40,000 yrs ago & artifacts indicate human occupation 50,000 yrs ago.  This pushes back the "Out of Africa" migration to somewhere around 60,000 yrs ago... unless the migrants had some unknown method of transportation.

Some interesting reading:

http://donsmaps.com/mungo.html

Answer 12

glad to get out of there, i should think

Answer 13

Probably ape-like.

Answer 14

Who says we were entirely human when we left 'Africa'?

225million years ago, most of the land on this planet was joined together in one large continent that we now call 'Pangea'. So I should imagine the apes or ape-like creatures travelled all over Pangea, and as the lands broke off and drifted apart our ancestors travelled with them. As the continents, as these broken lands now were, drifted into their present locations over the next 200million years or so we didn't need as much melanin to protect us from the sun. These traits then faded away with evolution, which was also affected by other factors such as climate change (which would be another reason why didn't need as much hair or melanin).

Were you thinking of apes making boats so they could travel across the oceans? :-D

Answer 15

Shorter than the average human today, perhaps a bit hairier that average as well, but overall the first true humans, H. sapiens sapiens, to push on were quite similar looking to the humans of today, which is why they are called anatomically modern humans (AMH).

Answer 16

We have a lot of 'em living in our town. They occupy council accomodation and come out at night to run riot, drink lots of beer and vomit everywhere.

Answer 17

They were negroids. They were blacks.

They probably look just like modern day Africans.

Answer 18

Well, if the single origin ("Out of Africa") hypothesis is correct, then the first fully modern humans to leave Africa looked little different than Africans of today.

Answer 19

Wayne Rooney

Answer 20

Like any other human, except black.