The paleoanthropological community is currently engaged in a very heated debate about how, when and where modern humans originated. Multiregionalism defends the side that represents no single origin for modern humanity, whereas the "Out of Africa" hypothesis states that humans originated in Africa and then slowly developed their modern forms in every area of the Old World some 200,000 years ago. This "Multiregional" hypothesis attempts to explain not only the origin of Homo sapiens, but also the existence of anatomical diversity in modern geographical populations. According to the multiregional hypothesis, this diversity resulted from the evolution of distinctive traits (through adaptation and genetic drift) in different geographical regions that became established in early populations of Homo erectus and persisted through the modern people. This persistence is known as regional continuity.

The fossil record is the real evidence for human evolution, and it is rich in both human remains and archaeological sites stretching back for a million years. Unlike the genetic data, fossils can be matched to the predictions of theories about the past without relying on a long list of assumptions. The "Eve" theory makes five predictions that the fossil evidence should prove. The first and major assumption is that modern humans from Africa must have completely replaced all other human groups. Second, implicit within this idea is that the earliest modern humans appeared in Africa. Third, it also follows that the earliest modern humans in other areas should have African features. Fourth, modern humans and the people they replaced should never have mixed or interbred. Fifth, an anatomic discontinuity should be evident between the human fossils before and after the replacement.