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Human evolution

Pedigrees for all humanity

Nature volume 431, pages 518–519 (2004)Cite this article

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.

In simplified models, which assume random mating, the average number of generations back to a universal common ancestor has been estimated2,3,4 to be around log2n, where n is the population size. So if, for instance, the present-day population were to consist of 1,000 people, the average number of generations back to the universal ancestor would be log2(1,000) — about 10 generations. For populations of size 106, or the present human population of size 6 × 109, it would be 20 or 33 generations, corresponding to 500 or a bit more than 800 years, respectively (assuming a generation time of 25 years). This is surprisingly recent.

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Figure 1: Searching for our universal common ancestor.

References

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  1. the Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, 1 South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3TG, UK

    Jotun Hein

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  1. Jotun Hein
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Hein, J. Pedigrees for all humanity. Nature 431, 518–519 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/431518a

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