Ancient Hybrid Event Rewrites Human Origins Story

Recent research published in Nature Genetics has revealed a surprising new chapter in human evolution. The study, utilizing a structured coalescent model, suggests that a significant population divergence occurred approximately 1.5 million years ago. This divergence led to two distinct lineages: one that would eventually evolve into modern humans, and the other into Neanderthals and Denisovans. The research further highlights a population bottleneck that significantly reduced the size of one of the lineages, before it eventually gave rise to modern humans. Remarkably, modern humans retain approximately 20% of their genome from this ancient ancestor. This discovery fundamentally alters our understanding of human origins and the complex intermingling of different hominin populations.