How humans filled the planet

Our species left Africa several times. Most of those attempts failed and left no descendants. One did not fail, and every person living outside Africa today descends from it. This section follows that spread, from the first attempts to the last empty land.

210,000 to 194,000 years ago — The first attempts. A piece of skull found at Apidima in Greece and a jawbone from Misliya Cave in Israel place modern humans in Eurasia far earlier than expected. These groups left no descendants. The early migrations did not last.
65,000 to 47,000 years ago — Australia. Humans cross open sea to reach Australia and New Guinea. This is the first sea crossing in history. It required boats, planning, and the knowledge that land existed somewhere they could not see. The high end of this range sits earlier than the 60,000 year date given below for the migration that lasted, and both numbers are approximate, so the two entries should be read as overlapping rather than as a strict sequence. The date is disputed. The excavation at Madjedbebe in Arnhem Land gives 65,000 years, based on grinding stones, ground ochre, and axes with polished edges. Other researchers who reviewed the wider evidence argue for no earlier than 48,000 to 47,000 years.
60,000 years ago — The migration that lasted. One small population leaves Africa and survives. Every person alive outside Africa descends from that one group. This is why people outside Africa are genetically more similar to each other than people inside Africa are.
45,000 years ago — Europe and northern Asia. Modern humans enter Neanderthal territory in Europe, and reach western Siberia at the same date. Neanderthals disappear within about 5,000 years of that arrival.
40,000 years ago — East Asia. A skeleton found at Tianyuan near Beijing carries DNA that is already related to East Asian people living today.
32,000 years ago — The Arctic. Sites on the Yana River in northern Siberia show humans living above the Arctic Circle during the ice age. The people who later reached the Americas came from this population.
23,000 to 21,000 years ago — The Americas. Footprints at White Sands in New Mexico date to the coldest part of the ice age. That means humans were living south of the ice sheets far earlier than the older Clovis-first theory allowed. The dating was challenged, and it has since been confirmed twice using separate methods: radiocarbon dating of pollen and luminescence dating in 2023, and radiocarbon dating of lake mud in 2025. Some researchers still object that no tools were found at the site. The excavators answer that people walking along a shoreline do not leave tools behind. Monte Verde in Chile was for a long time the accepted earliest site at about 14,500 years, and its date is now being tested again and disputed.
3,300 to 3,000 years ago — The far Pacific. The Lapita people sail east past the Solomon Islands into open ocean, and reach Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa. Planned navigation across open sea starts here.
Between 11,000 and 1,500 years ago — Madagascar. Madagascar is the fourth largest island in the world. Africa lies 400 km away, but the first settlers did not come from there. The Malagasy language and the genetics of Malagasy people both point to Austronesian speakers who crossed the Indian Ocean from about 7,000 km away. This date is the least certain on the page. The estimates cover about 9,000 years, which is the widest range for any island that radiocarbon dating can reach. One study reviewed every radiocarbon date from the island and supports human presence by at least 2,000 years ago, while allowing that a much earlier arrival is possible. A second study tested the early claims against the strict standards used for early sites in the Americas, and concluded that none of them meet those standards. It found no firm evidence of settlement before about 500 CE. Cities appear on the island around 1,000 years ago, and nobody disputes that part.
1021 CE — Humans reach all the way round the world. Norse woodcutters cut trees at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. The year is exact. A solar storm in 993 left a mark in the wood of every tree alive at the time, and counting the rings outward from that mark gives 1021. This is the earliest year we can prove that human migration had reached all the way around the planet. The movement west out of Africa finally met the movement east that had crossed from Siberia into America.
1250 to 1300 CE — The last empty land. Polynesians reach New Zealand. It is the last large piece of habitable land on Earth to be settled. Four separate methods give the same narrow range of dates: radiocarbon dating, layers of volcanic ash, pollen records that show forest being cleared, and seeds with rat teeth marks on them.