Goldin The Shortest History of Migration

1. Auflage 2024
ISBN: 978-1-913083-45-8
Verlag: Old Street Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, Band 14, 272 Seiten

Reihe: Shortest Histories

*Released early for the UK election.* From our earliest wanderings to the rise of the digital nomad, here is the story of human migration. For hundreds of thousands of years, the ability of Homo sapiens to travel across vast distances and adapt to new environments has been key to our survival as a species. Yet this deep migratory impulse is being tested as never before. By building ever stronger walls and raising barriers to progress, governments are harming the lives of migrants and threatening the future well-being of our societies. In The Shortest History of Migration, a visionary thinker tells a story of the movement of peoples that spans every age and continent and goes to the heart of what makes us human. Drawn from ancient records and the latest genetic research, it recounts strange, terrible and uplifting tales of migrants past and present, examining the legacies of empire, slavery and war. Finally, Goldin turns his attention to today's world, bringing together the evidence of history with the most recent data to suggest how we might create a more humane future -- one that allows us to reap the tremendous benefits that migration can offer.

Ian Goldin is the Oxford University Professor of Globalisation and Development and founding Director of the Oxford Martin School, the world's leading centre for interdisciplinary research into critical global challenges. He served as Advisor to President Nelson Mandela, has been knighted by the French Government and is the author of three BBC series. His book Age of the City was selected by the Financial Times as one of its best books of 2023. His website is iangoldin.org.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Goldin, Ian

Leseproben

1. The First Migrants
  It is safe to assume that when our ancestors first became fully human they were already migratory. William McNeill, ‘Human Migration in Historical Perspective’ Early Footsteps
The study of ancient migration is fraught with stubborn unknowns and shaky timelines. A single tooth, flake of stone or fragment of DNA can rewrite the story of early Homo sapiens as we understand it. New discoveries are occurring all the time. During the months I have been writing this book, fresh evidence has emerged that modern humans may have been roaming the African continent from Morocco to South Africa more than 300,000 years ago, that they settled in the Middle East at least 95,000 years ago and that they did not subsequently retreat into Africa as previously thought.2 The toolbelt of the modern archaeologist now includes genomic testing. In early 2024, genetic analysis of recently found bone fragments from a site in Ranis in Germany provided evidence that modern humans reached northern Europe 45,000 years ago and that they continued to live alongside and interbreed with Neanderthals.3 To the work of archaeologists and geneticists can be added the contributions of anthropologists, primatologists and experts from a growing range of disciplines. Artificial intelligence, genomics and other powerful tools are helping them unravel the puzzle of our origins. Within the lifespan even of younger readers, this research has overturned our understanding of how different branches of our family tree connect, shaking up beliefs about the past and resolving a number of mysteries. The biggest of these questions is where we come from. ‘Out of Africa’ remains the dominant story of prehistoric migration, with most studies tracing our origins to Ethiopia and the Great Rift Valley. But that tale is growing more complex. The recent discovery of skeletal remains in Morocco and southern Africa suggests the cradle of humanity may have spanned the continent. The geographic spread of this new evidence makes it all the harder to be certain about our precise origins. But it does suggest our ancestors travelled much further than was once thought. For tens of thousands of years, it seems, modern humans migrated over long distances within Africa before venturing into the Middle East and later the entire habitable world, traversing barren lands and eventually vast oceans. What We Do Know
Scrutiny of the oldest DNA fragments recovered from early hominins suggests we and our close cousins, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, share a common ancestor who lived more than half a million years ago. A popular candidate is Homo heidelbergensis, a species which ranged across several continents from 700,000 to 200,000 years ago. If so, its European family tree probably led to the Neanderthals and Denisovans while its African branch led to us. Homo sapiens was about and on the move at least 300,000 years ago. The oldest physical remains of anatomically modern humans – people who looked much like us – have been found at the Jebel Irhoud site in Morocco (315,000 years ago), at Florisbad in South Africa (260,000 years ago) and at the Omo site in Ethiopia (195,000 years ago). Reconstruction of earliest known ‘modern’ human from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco. (Philipp Gunz, MPI EVA Leipzig) At some point in their wanderings, the first modern humans stepped out of Africa. The story of their dispersal remains heavily contested, with estimates of when and where they went varying by many thousands of years and kilometres. Evidence based on tools found in volcanic ash suggests there were migrations out of the continent 130,000 years ago or even earlier. By at least 95,000 years ago, our kind were living in the Near East alongside Neanderthals, who were similarly technologically and intellectually advanced. Some of these early migrants travelled much further. Bones and teeth found in limestone cave systems in Laos and southern China suggest several human groups were living very far from Africa more than 80,000 years ago. For reasons still unknown – adverse climatic conditions, perhaps, or competition with other hominins – these early groups of Homo sapiens probably moved on or died out. They do not appear to represent our modern ancestry.4 Migration has never been a simple, linear progress from A to B. As today, groups of varying sizes travelled in different directions at different times, some returning to where they started and others staying in hitherto unexplored places. It is likely that most of these earliest movements have been lost to history. Early Encounters
By moving within Africa, our direct ancestors developed the skills needed to migrate and survive over ever-longer distances. Around 65–70,000 years ago they began venturing in greater numbers than before into the Middle East and then further into Asia and Europe. By this time modern humans had developed more sophisticated tools, technologies and lifestyles. They also benefited from a benign, humid climate that was spreading over parts of southern and tropical Africa, creating a more hospitable environment for human development than had existed at any time in the previous 200,000 years. Ancient Etchings Etched ochre blocks discovered at Blombos Cave near the southern tip of Africa have been dated to around 70,000 years ago. They are thought to be among the earliest forms of representational art with symbolic intent. Similar patterns have been discovered across southern Africa on blocks, shell beads and ostrich eggshells. Did the etchings carry information of some kind or were they simply recreational scribbles? Researchers are unsure, but they point to a high degree of cognitive development among these early humans.5 Once they left the African continent, our ancestors interbred with other hominins such as the Neanderthals and the more elusive Denisovans, who have left little in the fossil record but substantial traces in our DNA. These genetic relatives themselves moved over considerable distances. Evidence of a Neanderthal presence is scattered from Spain to the Caucasus, while finds linked to Denisovans have been made in Siberia, Tibet and Laos. Interbreeding, competition and the development by modern Homo sapiens of more sophisticated tools and customs may have contributed to the extinction of the Neanderthals between about 41,000 and 35,000 years ago. By that time a degree of hybridisation had occurred between the two groups: they likely shared caves and shelters and exchanged knowledge and practices as well as genes. Sapiens–Neanderthal relations in the Near East might have been violent at times, but it is thought there was also a significant degree of collaboration. This likely derived from necessity – for activities such as hunting – or a broader sense of shared interests and community. These early encounters between peoples created a ‘melting pot of ideas, technology, and DNA’.6 It was the crucible for ideas and innovations that would allow later humans to explore the diverse landscapes and climates of Eurasia and survive there. As Homo sapiens mingled with Denisovans further east, modern humans picked up the genes they needed to adapt to new environments as they spread across the world. Other changes were acquired much later. The gene mutation that allows humans to digest lactose likely originated in the Near East and was transported by farmers to Europe and South Asia. As more people began consuming dairy products thanks to the domestication of cows, goats and sheep, the gene spread through positive selection. Breathing Thin Air Interbreeding between diverse early human populations had significant biological consequences, equipping our direct ancestors with the genes they needed to adapt to different places and climates. The ancestors of many Tibetans, for example, acquired from Denisovans a gene active in red blood cells that is particularly helpful for living in low-oxygen environments. Initially, modern humans only occupied the Tibetan high plateau on a seasonal basis, but as gene mutations spread through the population they were able to settle at higher altitudes where they developed new agricultural techniques. The story with Neanderthals is similar. Modern humans in parts of Europe and East Asia hold keratin protein genes that have helped them grow skin and hair suitable for the colder ranges originally occupied by Neanderthals. By contrast, genetic analysis suggests that in Africa there was far less interbreeding with Homo neanderthalensis. Neanderthal DNA is found in some African populations, but it is thought to derive largely from Eurasian groups coming back into Africa around 20,000 years ago, long after they had mixed with their cousins in Europe and elsewhere. Genetic analysis also...