One thing that puzzles me. If we all came out of Africa, how come that in early recorded history the overall movement was into/across Europe from the east?
I was brought back to thinking about this by a comment someone made on last weeks population projections, that we were at the mercy of another unstoppable wave from the east
Just like in Anglo Saxon days
Or those who attacked the northern edges of the Roman Empire
Before them, the Sea People, or those who swept down through Greece
If movement was from the east, then Ireland was truly the very edge of the known world. Which might explain a lot
Part of the problem I have is in just getting my head round the different time scales involved. But listening to In Our Time this morning it occurred to me that in those pre-historic out of Africa migrations it could have been the genes, rather than their human carriers, which were the real travellers. Slowly, like the building of an ocean swell, as one nearly-human member of a group transferred half their genes to one of the neighbours, and so on and so on until unstoppable momentum was achieved & waves crashed on the shore
