New Research about emergence of humans

Researchers have always been curious to reveal the mystery of our history. According to a research done by the team from Uppsala University, Sweden, southern Africa has an important role to play in writing the history of humankind. Genomes of seven individuals who lived in southern Africa 2300-300 years ago were collected.

The research shows the population replacement that occurred in southern Africa 2300-300 years ago. The divergence that was estimated among modern humans to have occurred between 350,000 and 260,000 years ago is mostly based on the genomes of ancient Stone Age hunter-gatherer. The entire research informs that modern humans emerged much earlier than we thought.

It is now said that at least two or three Homo species were prevalent in the southern African landscape during 350,000-260,000 years prior. Now scientists have the access to ancient DNA of people who lived in East African landscape before the East African migration. The percentage is higher than they had been previously estimated.

It’s interesting to know that of the Iron Age individuals, three of them carry at least one Duffy null allele that protects against malaria; whereas, two have at least one sleeping-sickness-resistance variant in the APOL1 gene. It’s strange to find that these protective alleles were absent in Stone Age individuals. We can now sequence entire genomes of ancient human remains from tropical areas. The research highlighted more results about African history.

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By- Anita Aishvarya