re: First human ancestors came from Europe not Africa 7.2 million-year-old fossils indicate

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The idea that humans originated in sub-saharan africa and spread from there never made much sense to me. The sahara desert is nearly the size of the united states. No primitive people were crossing that desert to populate other lands. They would have been cooked and died.

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Besides the aforementioned relatively recent desertification of the Sahara, there is far too much genetic diversity within sub-Saharan vis a vis the rest of the world to make anyone seriously think otherwise. The amount of genetic diversity within sub-Saharan Africa is exponentially larger than it is even between the rest of the world.

Plus, all of our closest meaningful genetic relatives are in Africa. That's pretty compelling all on its own.