In the period 60-30,000 years ago, humans gained tenuous footholds in the continents of the Old World, and their M and N types drifted into descendent founder types, the mtDNA 'haplogroups', which are still continent- or region-specific today.

This stalled spread out of Africa has been dubbed the 'Weak Garden of Eden' scenario (Herpending et al. 1993), as opposed to the 'Strong Garden of Eden' scenario, the nickname for an uninterrupted expansion process out of Africa.