> They probably spent their entire lives within a few tens of miles of their birthplace, possibly within mere miles. While the land area required to support a

> They probably spent their entire lives within a few tens of miles of their birthplace, possibly within mere miles. While the land area required to support a single human or human ancestor might have been as little as a square mile in ideal conditions [0] that is very different from the range of a human or human ancestor over a lifetime. For simplicity we can consider hunter-gatherer humans who at least would have had similar caloric needs. For one, humans come in groups, which during most of our hunter-gatherer past would have been 150-300. If one is strictly gathering, this means all the resources around base camp would eventually be harvested and the group would need to migrate their base camp to another location. The group's foraging strategy could form a circuit where they return to their original base camp, but it's unlikely that every foraging location is as good as every other one, so the circuit will likely change over time, extending the lifetime range of a single individual. Secondly, there is a huge variation in hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Fishing communities are more sedentary while hunting communities are more nomadic and might travel hundreds of miles over a year. This is what one would expect from a generalist species like ourselves. [0] [David Pimentel and Marcia H. Pimentel, ‘Food, Energy, and Society’, third edition, (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2008), p. 45-46.]