Don't you think there's a tendency towards bias when everything indicates that apes originated in Africa and mostly continue to live there as their natural environment, to think that because we believe we descend from the same ancestors as those apes, that we also "originated in Africa"?. From there, the notion that humans as they exist today originated in Africa is a simple conclusion for the simple minded. It doesn't mean it's wrong, but I'm skeptical of the evidence I've seen indicating this was the case.
What are the odds that hominid-like apes originated in Africa, then moved towards Europe, and then went back to Africa for another 7 million years before evolving into humans (or, the ones that stayed behind are the ones that evolved into humans)?
If we've already established that hominid-like apes travelled far outside Africa well before the first appearance of anatomically modern humans, then the notion that humans must have originated in Africa requires vast amounts of evidence, which I don't think has been found so far.
