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7. Early Human Migrations and Dispersals
Early human migration and the ultimate global spread of our species depend on the East African Rift in a major part. The several habitats and resources the different conditions within the rift system offered helped the survival and development of early human populations. Growing and changing, these groups started to explore and settle new territory—inside Africa as well as outside.
With its lakes and rivers providing paths for migration and its varied landscapes giving distinct resources and obstacles, evidence points to the rift valley as a corridor for human migration. Genetic and fossil evidence from the East African Rift region powerfully supports the "Out of Africa" concept, which holds that all modern humans descended from a population that began in Africa.
Recent studies have exposed a complicated picture of human dispersals in which several waves of migration have occurred over hundreds of thousands of years. Changing conditions and surroundings inside the rift valley most certainly affected these motions. Deciphering the tale of human variation and adaption throughout many regions of the planet depends on an awareness of these early migrations.
