The first ancestors of modern man - Homo sapiens or Homo sapiens - lived on Earth much earlier than scientists had previously assumed. A group of researchers from South Africa and Sweden, based on the results of a genetic examination of the remains of human bones found in Africa, found that the evolutionary transition to homo sapiens took place about 260-350 thousand years ago, although the figure of 200 thousand was previously called. Sensational results of the study are cited by Reuters.
As noted, an analysis was made of the remains of seven bodies found during excavations in the province of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. As a result, it was possible to find out that one of the people was a hunter-gatherer boy who lived in these parts about 2000 years ago. After studying his remains, it was concluded that the evolutionary transition to Homo sapiens from an earlier species of people was concluded in the interval from about 260 thousand years to 350 thousand years ago. It is also noted that the first ancestors of the Homo sapiens species lived on the African continent.
“During this period, there have been some genetic changes that have resulted in us becoming the people we are today. And now we are very different from, say, the Neanderthals,”explained Matthias Jakobsson, an expert in population genetics at the University of Uppsala (Sweden), one of the authors of the study.
As noted by Reuters, in general, most scientists are unanimous in the opinion that homo sapiens originated in Africa. At the same time, the results of recent studies have given reason to believe that this is not about specific regions of Africa - for example, in the eastern part of the continent - but about its entire territory. In this regard, the scientific community began to talk about the so-called pan-African roots of mankind, the theory of which new genetic studies should only confirm.
Boris Makarov