Migrations in the ancient ages and now.

An interesting story as to how migrations of early humans's worked out and was helped with the wet weather. No wonder we love to go off to Spain and Italy. And I hate this current poxy weather, its overcast, dull, dim, grey. Its not even raining! (ok, so I am a bit grumpy right now!)

But at this moment, an interesting report on EU migration policy came out. And the migration out of MENA is not driven by wet weather, it is driven by economics and political repression. I quote:.

The EU has seen a shift towards "an externalisation of migration policy" towards the Mediterranean countries of the Middle East and North Africa (Med-MENA) – as proven by current Association Agreements – according to a study by Ounia Doukouré and Helen Oger for the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies.

The new European migration policy seeks to serve the EU's own interests rather than that of migrant workers, claim the authors – and thus the policy developed since 2002 has focused on illegal migration, border control, the management of migration and asylum and the fight against terrorism, rather than the rights of Mediterranean migrants in Europe.

Doukouré and Oger believe that the Commission's policy specifically targets attention and funds to countries such as Turkey and Morocco in order to try to stop migration in these transit countries, rather than adopting the approach of the Mediterranean countries themselves, which links development with migration – in keeping with World Bank and European Parliament opinion.

The authors claim that the EU's external policy of migration attempts to "Europeanise" the countries geographically closest to Europe by employing diverse regional approaches, rather than encouraging "global and homogenous regionalisation".

Talk about confusion galore!

Migration of Early Humans From Africa Aided By Wet Weather
Science Daily ^ | 8-30-2007 | Geological Society of America

Posted on 08/30/2007 10:15:20 AM PDT by blam

Source: Geological Society of America
Date: August 30, 2007

Migration of Early Humans From Africa Aided By Wet Weather

Science Daily — The African origin of early modern humans 200,000--150,000 years ago is now well documented, with archaeological data suggesting that a major migration from tropical east Africa to the Levant took place between 130,000 and 100,000 years ago via the presently hyper-arid Saharan-Arabian desert.

This migration was dependent on the occurrence of wetter climate in the region. Whereas there is good evidence that the southern and central Saharan-Arabian desert experienced increased monsoon precipitation during this period, no unequivocal evidence has been found for a corresponding rainfall increase in the northern part of the migration corridor, including the Sinai-Negev land bridge between Africa and Asia.

Passage through this "bottleneck" region would have been dependent on the development of suitable climate conditions.

Vaks et al. present a reconstruction of paleoclimate in the Negev Desert based on absolute uranium series dating of carbonate cave deposits (speleothems). Speleothems only form when rainwater enters the groundwater system and vegetation grows above a cave.

Today the climate in the Negev Desert is very arid and speleothems do not form, but their presence in a number of caves clearly indicates that conditions were wetter in the past. Vaks et al. dated 33 speleothem samples from five caves in the central and southern Negev Desert.

The ages of these speleothems show that the last main period of increased rainfall occurred between 140,000 and 110,000 years ago. The climate during this time consisted of episodic wet events that enabled the deserts of the northeastern Sahara, Sinai, and the Negev to become more hospitable for the movement of early modern humans.

The simultaneous occurrence of wet periods in the northern and southern parts of Saharan-Arabian desert could have led to the disappearance of the desert barrier between central Africa and the Levant.

The humid period in the Negev Desert between 140,000 and 110,000 years ago was preceded and followed by essentially unbroken arid conditions; thus creating a climatic "window" for early modern human migration to the Levant. Vaks et al.'s study suggest that climate change had an important limiting role in the timing of dispersal of early modern humans out of Africa.

Reference: Desert speleothems reveal climatic window for African exodus of early modern humans, Anton Vaks, Hebrew University, Institute of Earth Sciences, Edmond Safra Givat Ram Campus, Jerusalem 91904, Israel; et al. pages 831-834.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Geological Society of America.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!!