A new method of inferring ancient population size has revealed a severe bottleneck in the human population which almost wiped out the chance for humanity as we know it today. An unexplained gap in the African/Eurasian fossil record may now be explained thanks to a team of researchers from China,
The core formula of our new inference method is shown. The image depicts a cliff painting, illustrating the population of human ancestor pull together to survive the unknown danger in the darkness during the ancient severe bottleneck. Credit: Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, CAS
Using a novel method called FitCoal , the researchers were able to accurately determine demographic inferences by using modern-day human genomic sequences from 3,154 individuals. These findings indicate that early human ancestors went through a prolonged, severe bottleneck in which approximately 1,280 breeding individuals were able to sustain a population for about 117,000 years.
The repercussions of this bottleneck are staggering. An estimated 65.85% of current genetic diversity may have been lost due to this bottleneck in the early to middle Pleistocene era, and the prolonged period of minimal numbers of breeding individuals threatened humanity as we know it today. However, this bottleneck seems to have contributed to a speciation event where two ancestral chromosomes may have converged to form what is currently known as chromosome 2 in modern humans.
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