Recent research shows that humanity's evolutionary history includes a significant split into two branches over 1.5 million years ago. These groups, A and B, eventually reunited 300,000 years ago. The prevailing theory that modern humans evolved solely from a single ancestral lineage is now reversed. Using a technique called coalescent-based reconstruction of ancient admixture (cobraa), researchers can analyze current human genomes to develop a comprehensive human family tree. This method provides clarity on the paths of various human populations, including Neanderthals and Denisovans, which emerged from these evolutionary branches.
The discovery represents a major reversal of the prevailing theory of human evolution, which suggested that modern humans descended from a single ancestral lineage in Africa.
Astonishingly, simply by analyzing genetic clues from modern humans, cobraa can build a more detailed family tree for humanity than ever before - and can do so for other species too.
About 1.5 million years ago, our distant ancestors split into two distinct groups, labelled A and B. Soon after the separation, group A experienced an evolutionary bottleneck.
Group A eventually recovered and generated evolutionary offshoots; Neanderthals and Denisovans were genetically distinct human populations that evolved from this separate strand.
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