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Nature 431, 518-519 (30 September 2004) | doi:10.1038/431518a; Published online 29 September 2004
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Professor of Microscopy (W2)
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- Jena Germany
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Human evolution: Pedigrees for all humanity
Jotun Hein1
Abstract
Simulations based on a model of human population history and geography find that an individual that is the genealogical ancestor of all living humans existed just a few thousand years ago.
Writing on page 562 of this issue, Rohde, Olson and Chang1 address a simple but fascinating question: how far back in time must we go to find an individual who was the ancestor of all present-day humans? After a little consideration, the existence of such an individual (the 'universal ancestor' or, as the authors put it, our 'most recent common ancestor') should not surprise: I have two parents, four grandparents, and the growth in the population of my ancestors is close to exponential as I trace them back in time.
- Jotun Hein is in the Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, 1 South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3TG, UK.
e-mail: Email: hein@stats.ox.ac.uk
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