Dr. Elwyn Scully
Appearances
Global News Podcast
Putin agrees to pause Ukraine energy attacks during Trump call
Still to come... There's been a long-standing debate in whether or not humans on the sapiens, which we know appeared in Africa about 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, whether or not that happened all in just in one population somewhere in Africa.
Global News Podcast
Putin agrees to pause Ukraine energy attacks during Trump call
Well, there's been a longstanding debate in human evolution about whether or not about how humans evolved in Africa.
Global News Podcast
Putin agrees to pause Ukraine energy attacks during Trump call
And a lot of this was previously based on fossil evidence, whether or not humans on the sapiens, which we know appeared in Africa about 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, whether or not that happened all in just in one population somewhere in Africa or whether or not there were lots of populations there.
Global News Podcast
Putin agrees to pause Ukraine energy attacks during Trump call
all over Africa perhaps, maybe even some outside, all interacting in some way which collectively represent human ancestors at that time. So this study set out to address that using genetic evidence, which is another way of looking at human evolution complementary to fossils.
Global News Podcast
Putin agrees to pause Ukraine energy attacks during Trump call
Well, we found that actually the evidence suggests that back then, human ancestors did indeed live in multiple populations. So just like today, humans live all over the world in lots of different populations, not completely separate, of course, but nevertheless distinct in many ways. And it seems that that was also the case back then.
Global News Podcast
Putin agrees to pause Ukraine energy attacks during Trump call
So whether or not these were all across Africa, whether or not some of them were outside, that's less clear. But the evidence from the genetic data is pretty clear that it was that rather than a single population somewhere in East Africa or wherever.
Global News Podcast
Putin agrees to pause Ukraine energy attacks during Trump call
But it's really looking at the genetic ancestry that's actually found in every single person's genome all over the world. So you can do this just looking at one individual genome, which is really quite remarkable. It's kind of astonishing in many ways.
Global News Podcast
Putin agrees to pause Ukraine energy attacks during Trump call
And that's because there are ancestry differences between the chromosomes, the two copies of the chromosomes that you have, that everybody inherits from their mother and father. And some of those ancestry differences go back to relatively recent ancestors, just a few generations back, but...
Global News Podcast
Putin agrees to pause Ukraine energy attacks during Trump call
Some of it goes back a lot further, some even back to this time in Africa, hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Global News Podcast
Putin agrees to pause Ukraine energy attacks during Trump call
Yes, exactly. That's right. Just from modern day individuals living today, just looking at each person's genome.
Global News Podcast
Putin agrees to pause Ukraine energy attacks during Trump call
Oh, there's been a lot of migration and movement of humans all around the world since that time. I mean, not least the fact that although all our ancestors, the ancestors of everybody alive today was back in Africa at that time. Well, since then, our ancestors left Africa and have spread all around the world. And so you find it's you know, on every continent and every place now.
Global News Podcast
Putin agrees to pause Ukraine energy attacks during Trump call
So there are people everywhere now. Whether or not the ancestry of people today in these places reflect some of that movement, that's the kind of question that we would like to look at a bit further as well.