Asians played larger role in colonization of Europe than Africans
mongabay.com
August 6, 2007
Humans with Asian origins played a larger role than those from Africa in colonizing Europe millions of years ago, reports a paper published in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Analyzing more than 5000 hominin teeth from the genera Australopithecus and Homo in Africa, Asia, and Europe, a team of researchers led by Maria Martinón-Torres found that European teeth had more Asian features than African ones. Asian-origin teeth also appeared more often in the samples examined.
The results provide evidence for the theory that “European colonization was not based on successive “Out of Africa” waves, but on a more complicated mixture of immigrants and emigrants from three continents,” according to a summary from PNAS.
CITATION: M. Martinón-Torres, J. M. Bermúdez de Castro, A. Gómez-Robles, J. L. Arsuaga, E. Carbonell, D. Lordkipanidze, G. Manzi, and A. Margvelashvili (2007). Dental evidence on the hominin dispersals during the Pleistocene. PNAS early online edition August 6, 2007.