Honors Bio Class 17

Today in class we discussed the readings from homework that set up an overview of the trek our first ancestors took. The readings also questioned what enabled humans to populate most of the world in such a short expanse of time. The first traces of our ancestors can be found in Africa, dated back to 50,000 years ago. However, evidence of their existence was also found in Australia, implying that our ancestors had somehow traveled from Africa to Australia. one theory is this:

Long before the continents had fully separated, there was a land bridge that had connected Africa to Australia. This land bridge would have offered an acceptable route to reach our ancestors destination.
After discussing this possibility in groups, we watched a video that went into depth on the mindset of our ancestors, and what may have prompted them to leave Africa.

In Africa, there is a tribe called the San Bushman tribe, that is supposedly the closest living relatives to our ancestors. When studying their features we noticed that they shared characteristics from people all over the world; Asian eyes, European cheek bones, and African mouth shape and skin color. These traits imply that every single human may have possibly originated from these people, and through natural selection, different traits became more prominent. But why did our ancestors leave? Scientists have found evidence of an massive ice age that had taken place around  the same time we were evolving. The ice age greatly effected the climate, resulting in fluctuations of food availability. Also, our ancestors had begun to develop their own language and a more sophisticated way of thinking. this also resulted in advancements of technology, which may have also helped prompt the immigration.