We’re all family, aren’t we? Because there used to be 1 ape-man (I have no idea what it was called then), who, for example, had children again and they also went on and on?
Answer
Indeed. The world population is currently estimated at about 8 billion people, who live in all corners of the planet. But about 100,000 years ago, far fewer people lived, and only in part of the African continent. They weren’t noticeable at all back then. It is estimated that the current world population comes from a group of about a hundred ancestors (based on research of the hereditary material, the DNA, of people). So we are all related, and all descended from African ancestors.
Further back in time we are also related to those ape-like ancestors of the human species, and still further back to the ancestors of all mammals, all vertebrates, all animals, all living cell creatures. Biologists assume, based on all available data, that all life originated from one primordial cell that originated several billion years ago.
Answered by
prof. Dr. Luke Bouwens
Biomedical Sciences
Pleinlaan 2 1050 Ixelles
http://www.vub.ac.be/
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