Interesting Fact: According to a recent DNA study, all modern humans descended from a single location in southern Africa about 200,000 years ago. Back. On the other hand, experts believe that the study, which examines the DNA of live people, falls well short of pinpointing where our species originated.

Fossils and DNA evidence indicate that modern humans first appeared in Africa between 250,000 and 300,000 years ago. Because early Homo sapiens fossils can be discovered all over Africa, scientists have been unable to establish a specific hometown.

DNA from African fossils is extremely rare and does not date back far enough to be considered ancient. Researchers in the current study collected blood samples from 200 people who belonged to understudied ethnic groups, such as foragers and Click consonants used by hunter-gatherer people in Namibia and South Africa who speak Khoisan languages.

DNA Study Interesting Facts :

In this study, the scientists looked at mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), a form of DNA only passed down through the mother. Tested it against mtDNA from over 1000 other Africans, predominantly from southern Africa, and found it unique. After that, the researchers constructed a family tree to show how each sample was connected to the others.

 

According to Hayes and her colleagues, the homeland was located in northern Botswana’s Kalahari region. The Kalahari was a rich wetland between 200,000 and 130,000 years ago near the present-day Kalahari salt plains. Climate studies and models suggest that this would have been Africa’s biggest lake.

 

According to the research team’s hypothesis, people with L0 mtDNA lived in the Kalahari until 130,000 to 110,000 years ago. When the northeast and southwest started getting more green space because of climate change. As a result of the dispersal, some people developed novel mtDNA lineages, which the researchers have been able to identify. However, the use of mtDNA alone in current people is insufficient for tracing the history of Africa’s ancient populations.

 

Mtdna Can Only Trace One Genetic Lineage: That Of The Mother.

 

Y chromosomes are passed down from fathers, and any nuclear genes passed down from both parents may have been tracked by the researchers. Then again, Scally speculates that they could have received many alternative answers. mtDNA was chosen because other forms of DNA become jumbled throughout early fetal development, says Hayes.

 

A limited number of female ancestors lived only in southern Africa who can be traced directly using this technique. A kind of time capsule for our foremothers’ past lives.

 

Y chromosome data from Khoisan speakers have mostly vanished due to men migrating to other cultures. However, many question whether or not the Khoisan women of 200,000 years ago were still living in the same area. It’s possible that ancestral women of the L0 lineage came to southern Africa from somewhere else.

 

According to Tishkoff, these hominins may have been part of a much bigger group that went extinct somewhere else. Data from this study confirms previous findings that the Khoisan speakers L0 have the oldest known mtDNA lineage.

 

The research also narrows the time frame for L0’s emergence to around 200,000 years ago, according to a paper published today in Nature by scientists. Because this ancestry can now only be found in people from southern Africa, it is People of L0 ancestry lived in southern Africa and are considered the ancestors of all living humans in today’s population.

According to Francis Crick Institute population geneticist Pontus Skoglund, the final message is that populations have moved and mixed so extensively over the centuries. “extremely limited” when it comes to reconstructing what happened to communities 70,000-200,000 years ago when researching DNA from modern individuals.

 

The Proof Is Right In Front Of Us:

 

Modern people have short, slender faces with a prominent chin and a rounded skull, according to our standards. They begin to show up in isolated pockets across ancient Africa. Although the faces of the oldest known H. sapiens skulls resemble modern humans, their heads are long and rectangular instead of round in shape.

 

All of these facts point to H. sapiens having evolved our distinctive round skull and brain independently from other hominins that came before it. All of the distinctive features of the modern human head did not evolve until the past 100,000 to 40,000 years. Some have hypothesized that fossils with varying skull forms represent an extinct species.

 

ACCORDING TO SCERRI, STRINGER, AND THEIR CO-AUTHORS, the H. sapiens lineage dates back at least 500,000 years. because during its evolution, it would have accumulated more primitive fossils. Sapiens most likely descended from several interconnected peoples. And With whom they were connected and parted at various points in time. Physically, each person differed from the others due to their unique blend of ancestry and modernity.

 

A Fresh Perspective:

 

African multiregionalism now suggests that some of these prehistoric humans may have interbred with African archaic hominins. Other than those in Eurasia with Neanderthals and Denisova. It was assumed that H. sapiens made its first appearance in East Africa some 200,000 years ago for a long time.

 

Some archaeologists believe that our species originated in southern Africa, based on cultural evidence. As a co-author of the new research, Museum specialist Chris Stringer proposed in 2002 that our African roots might be “multiregional,” with different parts of Africa playing a role to varying points in history. In 2017, a significant body of research published in this support was released.

 

Fossilized early Homo sapiens remains from Morocco have been analyzed and dated to 315,000 years ago, making them the oldest known examples of our species. Commonly, fossils of Homo sapiens from the Middle Stone Age are found with much younger ones. However, these were discovered with considerably older ones.

 

It proved that northwest Africa played a significant role in human evolution’s beginnings. From Morocco to South Africa, sapiens could be found all throughout the continent. Additionally, they were all dissimilar in appearance, with a wide range of facial characteristics and skull shapes.