The ancestral homeland of all humans alive today can be traced back to the south of the Zambezi River, in northern Botswana, scientists have said.
In a study published in the journal Nature, the researchers believe that they have, for the first time, been able to pinpoint the geographical location where the earliest ancestors of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) arose 200,000 years ago.
Back then, this region – covering parts of Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe – was believed to be lush green and home to an enormous lake, allowing the ancestors to thrive for 70,000 years.
As the climate started to change, the population began to disperse – paving the way for modern humans to migrate out of Africa, and ultimately, across the world.
Professor Vanessa Hayes, a geneticist at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia, said: “It has been clear for some time that anatomically modern humans appeared in Africa roughly 200,000 years ago.
“What has been long debated is the exact location of this emergence and subsequent dispersal of our earliest ancestors.”
Professor Hayes and her colleagues collected blood samples from study participants in Namibia and South Africa and looked at their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA).
As mtDNA is passed almost exclusively from mother to child through the egg cell, its sequence stays the same over generations, making it a useful tool for looking at maternal ancestry.
The team focused their research on the L0 lineage – modern human’s earliest known population – and compared the complete DNA code (mitogenome) from different individuals – including other sub lineages across various locations in Africa – to see how closely they were related.
The researchers then combined genetics with geology and climatic physics, to paint a picture of what the world looked like 200,000 years ago.
Geological evidence suggests the homeland region once housed Africa’s largest ever lake system, known as Lake Makgadikgadi.
And climate computer model simulations indicate that “the slow wobble of Earth’s axis” brought “periodic shifts in rainfall” across the region.
Science Focus
But you are still the poorest in world. Congrats silly Africans . My whlte wlfe thinks problem with most Africans is their big ego and pride for nothing. She is right and I love her
This study does not put food on my table. Thanks!!
In short Africans are primitive savages who are still very similar to the monkeys they came from. This has always been the logic that racist anti Africans forces have used yo justify their hatred for Africans. They even used to keep some africans in cages, on display, in zoos for people to see “unevolved humans”. You can read about this.
So those of you thinking its something to be proud of should rethink.
This is just racists. Evolution is a joke.
What crap is this!
Next article please .
You wife thinks like you because you think like HAZALUZA HAGAIN.
FAKE NEWS! THIS IS NOT TRUE. The Bible and Hebrew history itself says that The Garden of Eden was in between the place were the Nile river splits in the around Ethiopia and Eritrea. These are fake scientists.
Absolutely, this is exactly the point! the Lake Makgadikgadi was left by the Zambezi river as a huge landmark after shifting its flow course from south Africa to Mozambique due to the swollen of the mantle crust on the western side of the coast about 250m named the kalahari Zimbabwe axis