Humans lived in tiny, separate bands for 100,000 years

0 Comments | AFP, April, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Human beings for 100,000 years lived in tiny, separate groups, facing harsh conditions that brought them to the brink of extinction, before they reunited and populated the world, genetic researchers have said.

"Who would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on the very edge of extinction," said paleontologist Meave Leakey, of Stony Brook University, New York.

The genetic study examined for the first time the evolution of our species from its origins with "mitochondrial Eve," a female hominid who lived some 200,000 years ago, to the point of near extinction 70,000 years ago, when the human population dwindled to as little as 2,000.

After this...