Cradle of Humanity

The evangelical Protestants of the 19th century, considered the inventors of the term "Cradle of Humanity," made claims that the term originated in Mesopotamia in the 2nd century, and that it was used by early non-Christian Arabs, to refer to a geographic area that falls within a 1,000 mile radius of the spot they believed to be the birthplace of humankind. No documentation of such a historical use has been forthcoming. Nevertheless, the term has been used not only in religious, but also in secular contexts, and may therefore refer to different locations, depending on the views of the user.

Jewish, Christian and Muslim creationists believe that man was created by God in a place called Eden and then placed in a garden located east of Eden. In the Christian Bible, Genesis 2:10-14 indicates the Garden of Eden was supplied by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Some early Christians (A.D second century) used the term to refer to a geographic area falling within a 1,000 mile radius of that location as the birthplace of mankind.

Evolutionary View
The consensus among some biologists and paleoanthropologists is that mankind evolved through natural processes, and when journalists and popularizers currently use the term "Cradle of Humanity", it refers to Great Rift Valley sites in Eastern Africa, where the oldest hominid fossils were found in 1974.

There is a growing list of scientists, alive today, who accept the biblical account of Creation.

As the evolutionist apriorism continues, the earliest hominids evolved from apes about 5 million years ago, but modern humans (homo sapien sapiens) didn't emerge until 150,000-200,000 years ago, in eastern Africa. Since 2002, however, several groups of prominent paleontologists have begun to challenge East Africa's position as the evolutionary "cradle of humanity", most notably because of the fossil hominid partial skull found in Chad in July 2002; recent research in connection with earliest hominids outside Africa focuses on the Liujiang hominid of China, the Dmanisi fossils of Georgia and the Mungo Man fossils in Australia.

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