Chapter 14 - Conclusion

Summary

ch 14: This chapter reviews what we think we know about how earlier humans established our global diaspora. This evidence consistently refutes the hypothesis that humans migrated before they had storable and transportable food sources, such as those arising from food production. Pleistocene humans did not migrate, they dispersed. To explain these dispersals, this chapter first compares what we can observe about differences between living humans and other animals with what we think we know about the earliest Homo sapiens populations. Next, it argues that humans relied on a suite of ancestral survival skills to overcome the obstacles they faced while dispersing. Finally, the chapter considers near, longer, and longest-term challenges to our survival and what we must do to overcome them.