A new study has uncovered evidence of a severe bottleneck in the ancient ancestor of modern humans that could have occurred as recently as 300,000 years ago. The research, published in the journal Nature, suggests that the bottleneck was caused by a period of extreme environmental instability in Africa at the time, resulting in a dramatic decrease in the population of human ancestors. This could explain why the modern human lineage is so genetically diverse, which has long puzzled evolutionary biologists. The findings offer a new perspective on the evolution of our species, and could help us better understand how we came to be the way we are today.

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source: Phys.org