Genetic and fossil evidence has accumulated in support of an African origin for modern humans. Despite
this consensus, several questions remain with regard to the mode and timing of dispersal out of the
continent. Competing models differ primarily by the number of dispersals, their geographic route, and
the extent to which expanding modern humans interacted with other hominins. Central in this debate is
whether Southeast Asia was occupied significantly earlier than other parts of Eurasia and, if so, whether
the population ancestral to extant Southeast Asians was notably different from the ancestors of extant
Eurasians. Here, genetic and fossil evidence for the dispersal process out of Africa and into Asia is
reviewed. A scenario that can resolve the current archaeological, genetic, and paleontological evidence is
one which considers an initial expansion of anatomically modern humans into the Arabian Peninsula and
the Levant during the terminal Middle Pleistocene, with continued exchange with Africans until the Late
Pleistocene, when modern humans then dispersed into Eurasia in two waves. Advances in population
genomics and methods applying evolutionary theory to the fossil record will serve to further clarify
modern human origins and the out-of-Africa process.