This sort of stuff has always fascinated me... and I hope you like it too!
By Farina E.
As reported by Al Jazeera, a recent study claims to have pinpointed the birthplace of all modern humans to a specific area in northern Botswana.
"We've known for a long time that modern humans originated in Africa roughly 200,000 years ago," explained Vanessa Hayes, a geneticist at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Australia and co-author of the study. "But what we hadn't known until the study was where exactly this homeland was."
The identified region, known as Makgadikgadi-Okavango, once hosted a vast lake. Scientists speculate that this area, now characterized by expansive salt pans, sustained a population of modern humans for around 70,000 years.
"It's an extremely large area, it would have been very wet, it would have been very lush," Hayes said. "And it would have actually provided a suitable habitat for modern humans and wildlife to have lived."
Approximately 130,000 years ago, as the climate in the region shifted, some of the population began migrating, marking the first exodus of humans from the continent.
Researchers hypothesize that multiple migration waves occurred, initially toward the northeast and later toward the southwest.
These early migration patterns were deduced by examining hundreds of mitochondrial DNA samples—genetic material passed down maternally—from contemporary Africans.
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