Out of Africa: how, when and why

It is given that our species arose in Africa some 150 to 200,000 years ago. It is also given that we are the sole hominin species in the word today. Between these two undisputed facts, there is little certain about the details of how this took place. This lecture will focus on questions of the early expansion out of Africa of our species: how presently available paleoclimatic, temporal and archaeological data correlate with the various models that have been proposed to described and explain this expansion.