Eurasian backflow

"Eurasian backflow" or "Eurasian back-migrations" refers to several waves of early modern-human migrations before and during the Neolithic, when some groups of anatomically modern humans (contemporaneous Homo sapiens) returned to Africa from parts of Eurasia. Modern humans had begun dispersing into Eurasia from Africa during the Middle Paleolithic. Today, all humans outside of Africa descend primarily from a single expansion that occurred 70,000–50,000 years ago.

Modern humans who dispersed into Eurasia came into contact with some groups of archaic humans, such as Neanderthals, and eventually interbred with them. As a result of this phenomenon, which continued until the Upper Paleolithic, those who returned from Eurasia played a significant role in introducing Neanderthal DNA to the African modern human genome, particularly among North Africans. Thus, in addition to intrinsic diversity within the continent borne by population structure and isolation, these historical influxes of Eurasian populations into Africa are regarded as a critical contributor to the existing genetic diversity.

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