Only fossils remain

The common ancestors of all modern humans lived in Africa some 150,000 years ago. Some descendants of these early humans stayed there, spreading throughout the continent. Others left Africa, reaching the Middle East by around 100,000 years ago. A fossilized cranium from a cave in Israel offers tangible evidence that early Africans were in the Middle East by that time. But DNA studies suggest that all of these people died off without contributing to today's human lineages.