The study says human ancestors suffered havoc 900,000 years ago, and 98.7% of people died because of extreme weather unable to find food.

CTOnews.com, September 2 (Xinhua)-- according to a recent study published in Science, a team of scientists from the United States, Italy and China found that the genome sequences of 3154 people were analyzed through FitCoal modeling tools, indicating that human ancestors experienced a catastrophe between 800 and 900,000 years ago, with 98.7% of people dying.

When the researchers investigated human diversity, they found that there was a "severe bottleneck" during this period, that is, a significant decline in the population reproduction rate.

The report found that the number of human ancestors was about 98000 people 930,000 years ago, but has since plummeted to only 1280, and this has been going on for about 117,000 years.

The main causes of the havoc were severe climate change, a long-term event of the ice age, a drop in sea level temperatures, and prolonged droughts in Africa and Eurasia, which may have made it difficult for people to find food at that time. Widespread drought led not only to the deaths of most human ancestors, but also to species such as mammoths, mastodons and giant sloths. CTOnews.com attached here a link to the paper as follows:

Referenc

Nick Ashton Chris Stringer, Did our ancestors nearly die out?.Science381947-948 (2023). DOI:10.1126/science.adj9484