By analyzing the genome sequences, researchers found that modern humans are the result of 2 populations that diverged 1.5 million years ago. It has long been believed that Homo sapiens first appeared 2-300,000 years ago from a single lineage. The latest results reveal that once the 2 populations diverged, they came back together in an admixture event around 300 thousand years ago, in a ratio of 80:20%. This data shows a strong bottleneck in the major ancestor, while the minority correlates to distance to coding sequence, suggesting a deleterious effect on the majority population. Interbreeding and genetic exchange has long played a major role in the emergence of new species across the animal kingdom.
Sources:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-025-02117-1
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/03/250318141412.htm
fascinating post. I found it cool that homo sapiens my have arisen from two different ancient population, rather than just one simple linage.
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