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Posted on 04/24/2008 2:05:33 PM PDT by blam
Study says near extinction threatened people
By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Writer
April 24,2008
(AP) -- Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests. The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.
The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.
"This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights into some of the key events in our species' history," Spencer Wells, National Geographic Society explorer in residence, said in a statement. "Tiny bands of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic drama, written in our DNA."
Wells is director of the Genographic Project, launched in 2005 to study anthropology using genetics. The report was published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.
Previous studies using mitochondrial DNA - which is passed down through mothers - have traced modern humans to a single "mitochondrial Eve," who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago.
The migrations of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known about humans between Eve and that dispersal.
The new study looks at the mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people in South Africa which appear to have diverged from other people between 90,000 and 150,000 years ago.
The researchers led by Doron Behar of Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel and Saharon Rosset of IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., and Tel Aviv University concluded that humans separated into small populations prior to the Stone Age, when they came back together and began to increase in numbers and spread to other areas.
Eastern Africa experienced a series of severe droughts between 135,000 and 90,000 years ago and the researchers said this climatological shift may have contributed to the population changes, dividing into small, isolated groups which developed independently.
Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Genographic adviser, commented: "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."
Today more than 6.6 billion people inhabit the globe, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The research was funded by the National Geographic Society, IBM, the Waitt Family Foundation, the Seaver Family Foundation, Family Tree
Anyone in the caldera would have been spared the inconvenience of being buried under lava, having been instantly vaporized by the explosion.
Yes, and both of them certified that Lucy was a human but were later proved wrong by the French, Lucy was a Chimpazee and nothing more. Leakey was wrong on many things, he wanted to be right so bad and to find the "missing link" so bad he falsified and lied about information.
I'm sure the scientific community will be stunned and impressed with your conclusions.
By the way, I've seen Lucy, and she doesn't look like a chimpanzee to me. Not much taller though.
She would have been lousy at basketball.
Yes, and both of them certified that Lucy was a human but were later proved wrong by the French, Lucy was a Chimpazee and nothing more. Leakey was wrong on many things, he wanted to be right so bad and to find the "missing link" so bad he falsified and lied about information.
Lucy was discovered in 1974 by Donald Johanson. Meave Leakey had no role in that whatsoever. You must be thinking of Mary Leakey, wife of Louis Leakey? She suggested that Lucy belonged to genus Homo. (Genus Homo and modern humans are not the same things.)
And your claim that Lucy was nothing more than a chimpanzee is not borne out by the studies that have been conducted. Lucy has a mix of modern and ancient traits, and does fit somewhere between chimpanzee and modern humans.
Perhaps before you lecture us on evolution and the details and personalities involved in these studies, you could learn a little more about them first?
I get it now. I agree.
Something seems suspicious about the DNA information..... and, I've thought so for a while now.
you’ve been beaten to the punch, which does *NOT* happen very often:
Study: Humans Almost Went Extinct 70,000 Years Ago
Fox News | Thursday, April 24, 2008 | AP
Posted on 04/24/2008 12:07:36 PM PDT by Sopater
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2006457/posts
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The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
Seen this one.
'Krakatau's Child' erupts in Indonesia
And we thank you for your opinion as well.
Maybe the only folks to survive were the ones coincidentally sleeping in caves that night - and a piece of Australia.
Maybe the only folks to survive were the ones coincidentally sleeping in caves that night - and a piece of Australia.
Is this the same time period as petrified wood?
My understanding is that the population crashes because man was still primarily a hunter gatherer at this stage and because there wasn’t a lot of humanity to begin with. Hunter gatherers are more sensitive to climatic disruptions than farmers (who can deliberately raise/grow and store surplus food for lean seasons and years). As for surviving, those who were far away and under cover were going to have the best chance of surviving the beginning stages of the event. However, the subsequent severe climate disruption led to the death of the plant and animal food sources that the human population depended on and was probably the cause of most of the deaths.
Petrified wood arises from particular circumstances at the time of the plant’s death: large logs are quickly buried in an oxygen-deprived strata where the organic material subsequently fossilizes into stone (by water filtering through the burial and replacing organic materials with minerals). As far as I know, it is not limited to any particular geologic period of the past. As the link below relates, it has even been created in the lab.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrified_wood
I have it from an infallible source that approximately 8-9000 years ago the population of the entire earth was reduced to 8 people as a result of a worldwide flood.
Run the numbers on the basis of 8 people 9000 years ago, and see what you come up with. Let me know, if you would.
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