Botswana Was The Ancestral Homeland Of All Humans, Claims Study – Mashable India

Anatomically modern humans (AMH) first walked on Earth roughly 200,000 years ago, in Africa. The abbreviation is a phrase used to distinguish Homo sapiens from other extinct hominins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. The exact location of the first evolved AMH has been unclear for years and now, scientists have resolved it using a genetic analysis.

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In the study published in Nature, a group of Australian, Namibian, South African and South Korean researchers found out that northern Botswana, specifically the region south of the Zambezi river, is most likely the ancestral homeland of all humans. Combining multiple fields of anthropology, such as ethno-linguistics, genetics and climate reconstructions, the researchers were able to arrive to a conclusion that our first Homo sapien ancestors emerged from Makgadikgadi-Okavango, the palaeo-wetland of southern Africa.

Prior to the current study, fossil records seemed to indicate it was eastern Africa where the AMHs actually originated. However, now, genetic analysis suggests the location was southern Africa. The study strongly focused on mitochondrial DNA called mitogenomes, sequencing 198 southern Africans and a total of 1217 mitogenomes. These were, then, ethno-linguistically classified as either KhoeSan (those who practice foraging and have a click in their languages) or non-KhoeSan.

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The researchers used phylogenetic analysis (studying the genes to determine genetic evolution) along with language families to reconstruct geographical population dispersals and their common ancestry. This determined that the first genetic lineage settled in the southwest region of the Zambezi river and diverged from here just 60,000 to 70,000 years ago. The paper also states that the Kalahari region in the greater Zambezi river basin had a crucial role in shaping the emergence and pre-history of AMHs.

The methodology of analysis itself has been criticized with many pointing out that mitogenomes are not entirely representative of a humans genetic makeup. There could also be multiple ancestral homelands if the fact that Homo sapiens could have evolved independently in multiple places is taken into consideration. The study authors accept this in the paper.

SEE ALSO: DNA shows humans first mated with Neanderthals 60,000 years ago

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Botswana Was The Ancestral Homeland Of All Humans, Claims Study - Mashable India