Humans evolved from all across Africa

Modern humans evolved in Africa, and groups from all over the continent contributed to that process, so we should stop searching for a single point of origin, according to researchers led by UCL and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. In a comment paper published in Nature Ecology and Evolution , the researchers argue that our evolutionary past must be understood as the outcome of dynamic changes in connectivity, or gene flow, between early humans scattered across Africa. Viewing past human populations as a succession of discrete branches on an evolutionary tree may be misleading, they said, by simplifying the human story to a series of 'splitting times'. "The genetics of contemporary humans are very clear. The greatest genetic diversity is found in Africans," said the study's senior author, Professor Mark Thomas (UCL Genetics Institute). "The old theory that we descend from regional populations spread across the Old World over the last million years or so is not supported by genetics data. "Non-Africans today have some ancestry from Neanderthals, and some have appreciable ancestry from the recently discovered Denisovans - and maybe other, as yet undiscovered ancient hominin groups.