Did Our Ancestors Face Oblivion 900,000 Years Ago?
Survival on the Brink or Statistical Mirage?
In 2023, a dramatic claim in Science1 suggested that human ancestors teetered on the edge of extinction around 900,000 years ago. The study, using a novel computational model called FitCoal, inferred that our ancestors experienced a catastrophic bottleneck, reducing the population to roughly 1,280 individuals. This bottleneck allegedly lasted for 117,000…
