It's every Green's Dream — so long as they're among the anointed twelve hundred
/
PRE-HISTORY: Human ancestors nearly went extinct 930,000 years ago.
Studying human evolution involves piecing together scattered clues about how we survived against tough odds. One of the biggest mysteries is understanding how large or small ancient human populations were. Typically, scientists rely on fossil records and ancient DNA to investigate these mysteries. But when it comes to periods as distant as the Pleistocene epoch—about a million years ago—such records become rare or nonexistent.
Now, a groundbreaking study published in the journal Science sheds new light on a dramatic event that nearly erased humans from existence. Researchers uncovered evidence that our ancestors survived a population crash that lasted over 100,000 years, leaving just around 1,280 individuals.