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No place on the planet has escaped the influence of Homo sapiens, from the rainforests cleared for farms to microplastic-laced deep oceans to climate-altered jet streams. Last November, the world population reached eight billion.
But as omnipresent as humans may be today, a team of scientists now claims that our species came very close to never appearing at all.
Researchers in China have found evidence suggesting that 930,000 years ago, the ancestors of modern humans suffered a massive population crash. They point to a drastic change to the climate that occurred around that time as the cause.
Our ancestors remained at low numbers — fewer than 1,280 breeding individuals — during a period known as a bottleneck. It lasted for over 100,000 years before the population rebounded.
“About 98.7 percent of human ancestors were lost at the beginning of the bottleneck, thus threatening our ancestors with extinction,” the scientists wrote. Their study was published on Thursday in the journal Science.
www.nytimes.com
But as omnipresent as humans may be today, a team of scientists now claims that our species came very close to never appearing at all.
Researchers in China have found evidence suggesting that 930,000 years ago, the ancestors of modern humans suffered a massive population crash. They point to a drastic change to the climate that occurred around that time as the cause.
Our ancestors remained at low numbers — fewer than 1,280 breeding individuals — during a period known as a bottleneck. It lasted for over 100,000 years before the population rebounded.
“About 98.7 percent of human ancestors were lost at the beginning of the bottleneck, thus threatening our ancestors with extinction,” the scientists wrote. Their study was published on Thursday in the journal Science.
Humanity’s Ancestors Nearly Died Out, Genetic Study Suggests
The population crashed following climate change about 930,000 years ago, scientists concluded. Other experts aren’t convinced by the analysis.
