Discover – June 2019

Farasan

Islands

Arabian

Red Peninsula

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JUNE 2019. DISCOVER 57

➲

Our ancestors, such as Homo

erectus, began leaving Africa

and moving into Eurasia by about

1.9 million years ago. Subsequent

waves of dispersal, eventually

including our own species,

followed.

The timing and route of this travel

out of Africa has been murky due to a

lack of archaeological sites. Perhaps

that’s because, for decades, researchers

focused on a route out of Africa from

what’s now Egypt, migrating along

the eastern Mediterranean coast into

the Middle East.

A route across the southern end of the

Red Sea, from the East African coast to

the Arabian Peninsula, would not have

been possible, conventional thinking

went, because it would have required

crossing a strait about 20 miles wide

at its narrowest point.

But recent genetic analysis of

baboons living on either side of the strait

showed that the animals managed to

cross the Red Sea at least twice in the

last 150,000 years. New paleocoastline

reconstructions have shown that, at

lower sea level, islands emerged mid-

channel. It would have been possible

to island-hop across the strait, with the

widest stretch of open water measuring

little more than 2 miles. If baboons could

manage it, why not archaic humans?

Archaeologist Geoff Bailey, at the

University of York, is currently working

on a research project focused on a small

group of southern Red Sea islands off

the coast of Saudi Arabia. The Farasans

are home to thousands of shell middens.

These piles of waste from processing

seafood can be so large they can be seen

from space. The oldest of these middens

were created about 7,000 years ago.

During times of lower sea level, Bailey

believes early human explorers leaving

Africa may have left shell middens of

their own. If they can be found beneath

layers of accumulated sediment, they

may provide evidence for the timing and

route of our species’ journey out of Africa

— and perhaps even earlier dispersals.

Bailey’s team is modifying a type of

seismic survey, originally developed

for oil exploration, to

search for clues below

the seabed surface.

“We’re experimenting

to identify the acoustic

signature of a shell midden

under marine sediment,”

he says. He admits the

methodology is new and still

being refined — and that,

even if perfected, it might

not find anything.

“We are sticking our neck

out there. We don’t know what

we’re going to find,” he says. “In

archaeology, you don’t know what

you’re going to find until you find it.”

A New Way

Out of Africa

70,000-plus years ago

On the Farasan

Islands, the

research team

working with

Geoff Bailey

examines the

interior of a

shell midden

after digging a

narrow trench

into it. Whether

natural or made

by humans, these

middens can

reveal a lot about

ancient coasts.

Early humans may

have island-hopped

across the southern

end of the Red Sea.

Researchers are

searching for evidence

near Saudi Arabia’s

Farasan Islands.

AFRICA

Egypt

Farasan

Islands

Homo

erectus

leaves

Africa*

*Illustrative only;

actual starting

point unknown

Saudi

Arabia

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