Human evolutionary history of Eastern Africa

Since the discovery of the first hominin fossils, East Africa has been in the spotlight of palaeo-anthropological investigation for its role as a potential cradle of humanity and as a gateway out of Africa. With the advent of the genomic era an ever increasing amount of information has started to complement this notion, and to place the area within a broader, Pan-African scenario. Here we examine the most recent genetic and fossil results that recapitulate the last hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution in the area, and point to a number of uncharted avenues that may complement the emerging scenario in the coming years.