The earliest representatives of people anatomically similar to living humans evolved from more archaic humans approximately 100,000 years ago. The process by which they emerged from and eventually replaced those late archaic humans remains unclear. It is likely that they evolved locally from such predecessors in northeastern Africa. Over the succeeding 50,000 years, their range expanded and contracted with changing global climatic cycles to include at times the Mediterranean Near East and portions of northern Africa. Early modern humans and their biology and way of life, therefore, initially had little advantage over late archaic humans.