The earliest forms considered to be close to "anatomically modern man" are known from East Africa, from 200,000 years before present. In reality, neither paleontological data nor the coalescence point of present-day genomes allow us to rigorously recognize a particular point of discontinuity at this time. Rather, we seem to be witnessing a gradual evolution ofHomo sapiens, particularly in terms of the brain, and a gradual entry into present-day anatomical variability between 100,000 and 50,000 years before the present. The existence of a restricted zone of origin of "modern man" in the sub-Saharan regions has been defended essentially on the basis of genetic data, which unfortunately ignored past variations in the environment and geographical distribution of ancestral populations. The last populations of African hunter-gatherers are today only relic populations, often displaced since the rise of agriculture. They represent only a tiny fraction of the groups that once occupied the African landscape, including the immense Saharan zone periodically traversed by rivers and covered with vegetation during the Pleistocene. Over time, the populations that produced the recent phases of the Middle Stone Age show increasing behavioral complexity and regional cultural differentiation.
17:00 - 18:00
