Genetic information suggests that the world population consisted of only about 1,280 reproductively viable individuals. And this small population would not have increased for about 117,000 years.
Genetic information from 3,154 human genomes – a set of chromosomes and genes – allowed the study authors to discover that about 98.7% of our ancestors perished during this phase, which coincided with dramatic changes in climate during the Middle Pleistocene, the long and long period intense ice age. The team used genes from 10 African populations and 40 non-African populations.
CNN adds that this moment would have led to the emergence of a new species that would have been “the common ancestor of modern humans, or Homo sapiens, and Neanderthals.”
According to the study, fire suppression and climate change, which made human life more hospitable, may have contributed to rapid population growth 813,000 years ago.
“This discovery raises many questions, such as where these individuals lived, how they survived catastrophic climate change, and whether natural selection accelerated human brain development during the period of population decline,” said study lead author Yi-Hsuan Pan, a genomics researcher at East China University.