Out of Africa
Also called: Out of Africa dispersal, Southern dispersal
About 60,000 to 50,000 years ago one branch of modern humans left Africa and spread into Asia. Over tens of thousands of years their descendants reached Australia, Europe and the Americas.
Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center · Public domain · Source
Modern humans had left Africa before: bones 180,000 to 100,000 years old come from the caves of Misliya, Skhul and Qafzeh in Israel. But those groups left little clear trace in people living today.
Most people living outside Africa today descend from a small group that left about 60,000 to 50,000 years ago. Scholars discuss a southern route — across the Bab-el-Mandeb strait at the mouth of the Red Sea, when ice-age seas were low, and along the coasts of Arabia — and a northern route through Sinai into the Levant.
They spread quickly along coasts and rivers, reaching South and Southeast Asia within a few thousand years, crossing by boat to Australia and moving north into Europe and Siberia. The Americas were reached only in the last ice age, over the Bering land bridge.