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Article: Indigenous Populations
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Public Health
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INDIGENOUS POPULATIONS
In considering indigenous, or aboriginal, populations the terms "indigenous" and "aboriginal" must be framed within a larger context of human adaptation, migration, and colonization. Despite controversy over human origins, many paleoanthropologists uphold the "Out of Africa hypothesis," which states that contemporary humans are descendants from a single line of
Homo sapiens
that developed in Southeast Africa between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. From Africa human populations migrated to many areas of the world, sometimes settling among other hominid groups that had arrived earlier. This migration occurred approximately 40,000 years ago for Northwest Africa; 30,000 ...