There was a modelling of the first dispersal out of Africa published by Susan Anton et al. in JHE issue 43 (2202): "An ecomorphological model of the initial hominid dispersal from Africa"
Thanks for the reference. I hadn't read this paper and I am sure it is full of useful information. But I doubt it would help me much in trying to deal with the issue or problem I mentioned in my two earlier posts. Within the time frame of the "palaeo exodus" (see below, note 1), i.e., the OoA, one can safely assume that, on a continental/subcontinental scale, Africa was already peopled. Similarly, it is very likely that, as this hypothesized dispersal went on, beyond the African boundaries (Near East, Europe, Asia), the ooA populations would have encountered (been confronted with in various ways) more or less distant cousins who were already exploiting regional resources, again with cultural means. These territories would have been new to the OoA groups, but, certainly, not unoccupied -- with all that entails in terms of (variable) degrees of cultural interaction, resource competition, etc.
What I am looking for is info on Late Pleistocene/Holocene human dispersals in "unoccupied" continental or subcontinental areas. To the best of my knowledge, archaeological evidence for such complex events can best be found in northeastern Siberia/Beringia and the rest of the New World, the route leading from inland Southeast Asia to Australia and Australia itself, the movement of Palaeo-Eskimo groups into the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and the oceanic spread of the Polynesians.
As for the "linear dispersal" part of the problem, I think it can only be of use when examining the New World initial dispersal (particularly, the feasibility of the "wet" or coastal/maritime hypothesis) and, perhaps, somewhat similar situations along segments of coastal Australia. But then, I don't know much about the latter.
Jacques Cinq-Mars
