East Bay Atheists Present Dr. Henry Gilbert Speaks On "Out of Africa"

This month East Bay Atheists features Anthropologist Dr. Henry Gilbert of CSU Hayward speaking on the origins of our species in Africa, and how they spread throughout the world. Professor Gilbert is actively engaged in research in Africa, along with teaching. Here is how he describes his talk:

“5,000 years ago a family of three foragers died in the Sahara of central Niger. What is today a parched desert was then a seasonally dry grassland, and they were buried on a mat of fresh flowers. This minor Sahara greening was only the latest of many, and climate change has intermittently opened and closed connections between Sub-Saharan Africa and Eurasia since significant glacial-interglacial cycles started 2.7 million years ago.

“Humans emerged in Africa. Almost everyone with their eyes open knows this, but far fewer understand the way that humans spread around the globe. Who were the first hominids out of Africa? How many dispersals were there? Where is your last common ancestor in Africa? Did you know that Homo erectus from China is NOT the ancestor of modern Chinese people? Did you know that the bow and arrow was invented in Africa about 70,000 years ago and spread to Eurasia only 30,000 years later?