Wise sapiens originated in Africa, before dispersing around the world

Out of Africa  Wise Wise sapiens sapiens.

The final part of the gallery explores how our species,  Wise sapiens, originated in Africa, before dispersing around the world and becoming the only surviving species of human left today. Prehistory humans evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago.

Who left Africa first?

Homo ergaster (or African Homo erectus) may have been the first human species to leave Africa. Fossil remains show this species had expanded its range into southern Eurasia by 1.75 million years ago. Their descendents, Asian Homo erectus, then spread eastward and were established in South East Asia by at least 1.6 million years ago.  However, an alternate theory proposes that hominins migrated out of Africa before Homo ergaster evolved, possibly about 2 million years ago, prior to the earliest dates of Homo erectus in Asia.

By 100,000 years ago, humans had dispersed and diversified into at least four species. Our own species, Homo sapiens, lived in Africa and the Middle East, Homo neanderthalensis lived in Europe, and Homo floresiensis in southern Asia. Modern Melanesians have about 4% of this DNA. The species is unknown, but may be late surviving Homo heidelbergensis or a yet-to-be-discovered species. This diversity disappeared about 28,000 years ago, however, and only one human species now survives.