Scientists Trace the Exact Location Believed to Be the Origin of All Human Life
The exact origin of human life is a topic that has not one but many well-known theories by experts. While some scientists believe that Africa is the place where humanity actually began, others have named multiple other regions contributing to our overall development. Not just this, apart from scientific explanations, there are also many cultural and religious beliefs about how human life began. In related news, a team of scientists and expert researchers has now pinpointed the exact place where human life allegedly began. This discovery offers clues about how early humans spread across the planet, and it can also reshape our understanding of human evolution.
The long-held belief that humans originated in Africa was initiated by Charles Darwin. In his 1871 book titled The Descent of Man, he claimed that Africa was likely the birthplace of humanity, as our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, are native to the continent even today, as reported by Smithsonian Magazine. However, despite the advances that we have already made in studying human evolution and its origins, many questions are still to be answered. Professor Vanessa Hayes from Sydney’s Garvan Institute of Medical Research is trying her best to find those answers.
As reported by Indy 100, Hayes said, “We have known for a long time that modern humans originated in Africa and roughly 200,000 years ago, but what we hadn’t known until this study was where exactly." To find the answers, the professor and her expert team analyzed around 1,217 mitochondrial DNA samples, inherited from mother to child. These samples were collected from people living across southern Africa. After a detailed analysis, they were finally able to trace humanity’s oldest maternal line to an ancestral home that extended from Namibia through Botswana and into Zimbabwe.
To get a clearer picture, the team combined their genetic discoveries with evidence collected from geology, archaeology, and ancient fossils. This approach pointed to an area south of the Zambezi River that could have supported early humans for 70,000 years. Hayes spoke about this and said, “It would have been very lush, and it would have provided a suitable habitat for modern humans and wildlife to have lived.” Later on, around 130,000 years ago, some humans moved northeast along green paths, and others moved southwest. The northeast group became the farming population, while the southwest group became coastal foragers, as reported by The Guardian. The findings of the detailed study were published in the journal Nature.
However, not all the scientists and researchers are satisfied with what the findings suggest. Sarah Tishkoff, a geneticist, raised doubts and said, “How can they know that there aren’t old lineages in other regions if they’re not included in the study?” Another expert, Chris Stringer, said, “I’m definitely cautious about using modern genetic distributions to infer exactly where ancestral populations were living 200,000 years ago, particularly in a continent as large and complex as Africa.” He added, “Like so many studies that concentrate on one small bit of the genome, or one region, or one stone tool industry, or one ‘critical’ fossil, it cannot capture the full complexity of our mosaic origins, once other data are considered.”
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