Before present in the context of "Early expansions of hominins out of Africa"

Early human migrations are the earliest migrations and expansions of archaic and modern humans across continents. They are believed to have begun approximately 2 million years ago with the early expansions out of Africa by Homo erectus. This initial migration was followed by other archaic humans including H. heidelbergensis, which lived around 500,000 years ago and was the likely ancestor of Denisovans and Neanderthals as well as modern humans. Early hominids had likely crossed land bridges that have now sunk.

Within Africa, Homo sapiens dispersed around the time of its speciation, roughly 300,000 years ago. The recent African origin theory suggests that the anatomically modern humans outside of Africa descend from a population of Homo sapiens migrating from East Africa roughly 70–50,000 years ago and spreading along the southern coast of Asia and to Oceania by about 50,000 years ago. Modern humans spread across Europe about 40,000 years ago.

The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and with the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the latter part of the Middle Paleolithic, the middle of the West Eurasian Old Stone Age. It lasted roughly from 160,000 to 40,000 BP. If its predecessor, known as Levallois or Levallois–Mousterian, is included, the range is extended to include as early as c. 300,000–200,000 BP. The main following period is the Aurignacian (c. 43,000–28,000 BP) of Homo sapiens.

Nordlaguna is a lagoon on the island of Jan Mayen. It is the second largest lake of Jan Mayen, after Sørlaguna, and is located in the central part of the island, near the bay of Stasjonsbukta. It was possibly formed by an eruption of Beerenberg volcano in 1732. Before isolation from the ocean 220 calyr BP what is now the Nordlaguna basin was a marine bay for about 2200 years. Before this, in a timespan between 2200 and 2400 calyr BP, it was mostly isolated from the ocean. This lake or lake-like period was preceded by at least 300–400 years of marine conditions.

Its deepest part lie in the southeast reaching 36 m below sea level.

Haua Fteah (Arabic: هوا فطيح, romanized: Hawā Fṭiyaḥ) is a large karstic cave located in the Cyrenaica in northeastern Libya. This site has been of significance to research on African archaeological history and anatomically modern human prehistory because it was occupied during the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, the Mesolithic and the Neolithic. Evidence of modern human presence in the cave date back to 200,000 BP.

The term 'haua' describes a typical cave structure of the local coastal area, which has been formed in its present shape by erosion processes of the sea during the early stage of the Pleistocene.

The Ahmarian culture was a Paleolithic archeological industry in the Levant dated at 46,000–42,000 years before present (BP) and thought to be related to Levantine Emiran and younger European Aurignacian cultures.

The word "Ahmarian" was adopted from the archaeological site of Erq el-Ahmar (also written Erk el Ahmar), West Bank, Palestine, a rockshelter in the Judean Desert in the northern Dead Sea Rift. It was explored and excavated by French Prehistorian René Neuville in 1951. The "Ahmarian" category had only been recognized since the 1980s, and was previously designated as "Phase II Upper Paleolithic" or "Ksar Akil Phase B".