2023-08-31 19:35:07
Reconstruction of a female Homo erectus. She lived 1.7 million years ago. Photo Sylvain Entressangle, reconstitution Elisabeth Daynes / LookatSciences
DECRYPTION – The population of the predecessors of “Homo sapiens” would have dropped to 1,300 900,000 years ago.
Around 900,000 years ago, mankind’s ancestors fell on extremely hard times, with the global population reduced to just 1,300 adults of childbearing age. A test that could well have ended in total extinction, especially since it lasted more than 100,000 years. This surprising scenario is proposed by Chinese researchers and two Italian collaborators, in a publication published on August 31 in the journal Science. According to them, this tightening extreme population would be linked to a climate change in the middle of the Pleistocene, with a global cooling phase.
“It’s very interesting, it’s work that will make noise on this very hot theme of origins ofA wise man »comments Céline Bon, paleogenetician at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.“It’s quite a provocative result, but there are many unanswered questions that urge me to be cautious,” considers for his part Chris Stringer, paleoanthropologist…
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