ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I review the earliest skeletal evidence for our species – Homo sapiens – in Africa, and the associated archaeological evidence for the African Middle Stone Age (MSA). Next, I discuss the role of a “green Sahara” in providing corridors between sub-Saharan and North Africa, and its implications for early dispersals out of Africa by our species. I also discuss whether early H. sapiens in Africa behaved in a “modern” way compared with their Neandertal contemporaries and consider if it would be profitable to search for evidence of “modern” behaviour in the Asian record.
