A note in a swedish newspaper today:
Molecular biologist Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti, University of Pavia has
found from mitocondrial dna studies that out of Africa did not start until
50000 years ago, and was first to Asia later Eorope. Genetitian Marcus
Feldman of Stanford University has studied the male Y-kromosome. He thinks
that all people on earth inherit from only 2000 individuals who lived some
40000 years ago. This dating is very uncertain, but close to the italian
estimation.

My comment:
This points to an important bottleneck in Asia during a period with access
to big fat animals. The few people that survived may have been the ones
that thrived on such food (and whatever else there was to eat in amounts)...

- Hans