According to the available archeological record, anatomically modern humans began to move out of Africa/Eurasia at least 60,000 calendar years ago.
The first new area to be colonized was Meganesia (Australia and New Guinea), probably from the region of present-day Indonesia.
Much later, humans entered the New World (North America and South America) --perhaps directly over the Bering land bridge, or perhaps over water, by following the coastline of the Aleutians to reach the North American seaboard. This immigration event happened at least 14,000 calendar years ago, and may have happened much earlier according to some scientists.
Somewhat later, humans spread out to the world's remaining habitable islands: central Mediterranean islands, at least 8,000 years ago; West Indies, at least 7,500 years ago; Madagascar, 2,000 years ago; New Zealand, perhaps 1,500 years ago. Many isolated islands, such as the Galapagos, were reached by humans only in the last 500 years.
Click on different geographic regions to see some of the mammals that went extinct there.
