Sep 01, 2023 14:46:00

It is clear that the ancestors of humans decreased by about 98.7% about 900,000 years ago and were on the verge of extinction

We humans currently living on earth are a

member of the genus Homo , which is called ' Homo sapiens ' and was born approximately 200,000 to 100,000 years ago. However, it has been reported that approximately 900,000 years ago, the number of humans' ancestors decreased to just 1,280, and they may have been on the verge of extinction.

Genomic inference of a severe human bottleneck during the Early to Middle Pleistocene transition |
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq7487

Human ancestors nearly went extinct 900,000 years ago

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02712-4

Previous research has found fossils of

ape-men, such as Australopithecus , who lived about 4 million to 2 million years ago, and hominins, such as Homo erectus , which appeared about 1.8 million years ago. However, very few fossils of human ancestors who lived in Africa and Eurasia about 950,000 to 650,000 years ago have been found.

'There are technical limitations to extracting ancient DNA data from old fossils, and we know very little about the population dynamics of our early human ancestors,' said Selena Tucci, an anthropologist at Yale University. says. Therefore, in order to investigate human ancestors from about 1 million to 800,000 years ago, the research team constructed a complex family tree from modern human genetic data and traced it back to find important points in human ancestors. A survey of evolutionary events was conducted.

Stanley Ambrose of the University of Illinois said, ``There are still many mysteries that remain unsolved about the human race from about 1 million to 800,000 years ago, but this research method is unprecedented. We conducted research on humans during this period.'

As a result of the survey, it was found that approximately 900,000 years ago, the number of an unknown species that may be the ancestor of humans decreased to just 1,280 individuals. Li Hai-Peng of the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reports that ``about 98.7% of human ancestry was lost.''

According to the research team, this period, about 900,000 years ago, was a transition period from the early to middle

Pleistocene . During this period, severe climate change occurred, including a cooling of the earth, leading to long periods of drought in Africa. ``Severe climate change may have led to a mass decline in human ancestors, giving rise to a common ancestor of Denisovans and Neanderthals that led to Homo sapiens,'' Lee said.

Human ancestors declined in large numbers about 900,000 years ago, and then started expanding their population again about 813,000 years ago. On the other hand, Hao Zicheng, a population geneticist at Shandong First Medical University, said, ``It remains unclear how the human ancestors, whose population was reduced to just 1,280, survived and how they expanded their population again.'' It is,' he points out.

Mr. Hao said, ``During the period from about 950,000 to 650,000 years ago, when few fossils have been discovered, it is thought that characteristics that appear in modern humans, such as brain size, appeared.However, about 900,000 years ago 'Due to the previous decline, about two-thirds of genetic diversity was lost, and there are many unknowns about how humans evolved from there.'