[THS] Study says near extinction threatened people

[Peter Webster]

[Exactly the scenario I predicted, but it is curious they fail to mention the
Toba eruption, surely a critical factor in producing the threat of extinction,
and coincidentally the birth of modern humans. 
See items at http://www.psychedelic-library.org/newmenu.htm 
Psychedelics in Eden - Video Programme 
Prohibition: Its Roots and Bitter Fruit
  -pw]

http://www.physorg.com/news128257729.html


Study says near extinction threatened people

(AP) -- Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years
ago, an extensive genetic study suggests. The human population at that
time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of
drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.

The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University
estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000
before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.

"This study illustrates the extraordinary power of genetics to reveal insights
into some of the key events in our species' history," Spencer Wells, National
Geographic Society explorer in residence, said in a statement. "Tiny bands
of early humans, forced apart by harsh environmental conditions, coming
back from the brink to reunite and populate the world. Truly an epic
drama, written in our DNA."

Wells is director of the Genographic Project, launched in 2005 to study
anthropology using genetics. The report was published in the American
Journal of Human Genetics.

Previous studies using mitochondrial DNA - which is passed down through
mothers - have traced modern humans to a single "mitochondrial Eve," who
lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago.

The migrations of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world
appear to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known
about humans between Eve and that dispersal.

The new study looks at the mitochondrial DNA of the Khoi and San people
in South Africa which appear to have diverged from other people between
90,000 and 150,000 years ago.

The researchers led by Doron Behar of Rambam Medical Center in Haifa,
Israel and Saharon Rosset of IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown
Heights, N.Y., and Tel Aviv University concluded that humans separated
into small populations prior to the Stone Age, when they came back
together and began to increase in numbers and spread to other areas.

Eastern Africa experienced a series of severe droughts between 135,000
and 90,000 years ago and the researchers said this climatological shift may
have contributed to the population changes, dividing into small, isolated
groups which developed independently.

Paleontologist Meave Leakey, a Genographic adviser, commented: "Who
would have thought that as recently as 70,000 years ago, extremes of
climate had reduced our population to such small numbers that we were on
the very edge of extinction."

Today more than 6.6 billion people inhabit the globe, according to the U.S.
Census Bureau.

The research was funded by the National Geographic Society, IBM, the
Waitt Family Foundation, the Seaver Family Foundation, Family Tree DNA
and Arizona Research Labs.