About the origin of our species

Experts from the Natural History Museum, the Francis Crick Institute and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History Jena have joined forces to unravel the different meanings of ancestry in the evolution of our species of Homo sapiens.

Most of us are fascinated by our lineage, and by extension the lineage of the human species. We regularly see headlines such as ‘New Human Ancestor Discovered’ or ‘New Fossil Changes Everything We Thought About Our Ancestors’, and yet the meanings of words like ancestor and lineage are rarely discussed in detail. In the new article, published in Natureexperts are reviewing our current understanding of how modern human ancestors around the world can be traced back to the distant past, and which ancestors it went through on our journey back in time.

Co-author-researcher of the Natural History Museum Prof. Chris Stringer said, “Some of our ancestors have lived in groups or populations that can be identified in the fossil record, while very little will be known about others. In the next decade, recognition of our complex origins would grow in the geographic focus. of paleoanthropological fieldwork to regions previously considered peripheral to our evolution, such as Central and West Africa, the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. “

The research identified three main stages in our lineage that are surrounded by big questions and will be boundaries in the coming research. From the global expansion of modern humans about 40-60,000 years ago and the last known contacts with archaic groups such as the Neanderthals and Denisovans, to an African origin of modern human diversity about 60-300,000 years ago, and finally the complex separation of modern human ancestors of archaic human groups about 300,000 to 1 million years ago.

The scientists argue that no specific time point can be currently identified when modern human ancestry was limited to a limited place of birth, and that the known patterns of the first appearance of anatomical or behavioral features often used to define Homo sapiens fit into a series of evolutionary histories.

Co-author Pontus Skoglund of the Francis Crick Institute said, “Contrary to popular belief, the genetic or fossil records have not yet revealed a defined time and place for the origin of our species. Such a time, when the majority of our ancestry was found in a small geographic region, and the traits we associate with our species have appeared, but may not have existed. For now, it would be helpful to move away from the idea of ​​a single time and place of origin. “

“As a result, major emerging questions concern the mechanisms that powered and sustained this human patchwork quilt, with all its various ancestral threads, in time and space,” said study co-author Eleanor Scerri of the Pan-African Evolution Research. Group of the Max Planck Institute. for the science of human history. “Understanding the relationship between broken habitats and shifting human niches will undoubtedly play a key role in unraveling these questions by clarifying which demographic patterns best fit the genetic and paleoanthropological data.”

The success of direct genetic analyzes so far underscores the importance of a broader, ancient genetic record. This requires continuous technological advancements in ancient DNA (aDNA) retrieval, biomolecular screening of fragmentary fossils to find unrecognized human material, broader searches for sedimentary aDNA, and improvements in the evolutionary information provided by ancient proteins. Interdisciplinary analysis of the growing genetic, fossil and archaeological data will no doubt reveal many new surprises about the roots of modern human lineage.