Surviving the Frozen World: Genomic Research Reveals Humanity's Close Call with Extinction
A new genomic model suggests a significant decline in human ancestor populations between 800,000 and 900,000 years ago, with only 1280 breeding individuals during the transition from the early to middle Pleistocene. This population bottleneck lasted for about 117,000 years and coincided with climatic changes. The coalescence model used in the study revealed a distinct bottleneck in African populations and a weaker signal in non-African populations. The proposed bottleneck aligns with the time period of the last common ancestor of Denisovans, Neanderthals, and modern Homo sapiens, but further archaeological evidence is needed for validation.