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Endangered Species: Humans Might Have Faced Extinction 1 Million Years Ago

marco_polo · 2010-01-23 14:18:34

Genetic estimates of the effective population size of early hominids suggest about one million years ago the species came very close to extinction.

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23-01-2010 3:18pm

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marco_polo

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Genetic estimates of the effective population size of early hominids suggest about one million years ago the species came very close to extinction.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=early-human-population-size-genetic-diversity

The genetic evidence suggests that the effective population—an indicator of genetic diversity—of early human species back then, including Homo erectus, H. ergaster and archaic H. sapiens, was about 18,500 individuals (it is thought that modern humans evolved from H. erectus), says Lynn Jorde, a human geneticist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. That figure translates into a total population of 55,500 individuals, tops.

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