An article published in the journal “Science Advances” reports a study that offers evidence that groups of Homo sapiens migrated from Africa using the Levant as a passageway to western Asia and northern Arabia. A team of researchers conducted a digging campaign in Jordan looking for traces of ancient human passages in what is now a desert but tens of thousands of years ago was an area covered by savannah and grasslands. The discovery of sediments dating back about 84,000 years containing tools, like the one in the image (Courtesy University of Southampton. All rights reserved) seen from different angles, created with the so-called Levallois technique in that area confirms that the Levant was part of at least one of the human migration routes from Africa.

The oldest fossils attributed to the Homo sapiens species date back to around 300,000 years ago and only after many millennia did the first migrations towards other continents begin. Current knowledge indicates that there were several migrations in the interglacial period between 129,000 and 71,000 years ago but much discussion concerns the route taken by hunter-gatherer groups who ventured out of Africa.

The search for traces of those migrations from Africa is made more difficult by the many changes that occurred in those lands with the passing of the ice ages. For example, one of the proposed possibilities concerns the crossing of the current Red Sea in periods of glaciation when sea levels were much lower.

Concerning the possible northern route, archaeological and paleontological discoveries were already made in the Levant in the past with findings of fossils, stone tools, and human footprints that prove the passage of ancient human beings. Now this new study confirmed those conclusions after finding other tools dating back around 84,000 years ago made using the so-called Levallois technique.

What was called a well-watered corridor funneled hunter-gatherers across the Levant into western Asia and northern Arabia. In fact, at the time in which the tools discovered in Jordan were used, that area known as Wadi Gharandal which is now a desert was covered by savannah and grasslands. The ancient Homo sapiens could find the resources necessary for their survival in those areas. For this reason, the reconstruction of human migrations goes hand in hand with those of climate change.