title: A structured ancestral population for the evolution of modern humans.
abstract: The view that modern humans evolved through a bottleneck from a single founding group of archaic Homo is being challenged by new analyses of contemporary genetic variation. A wide range of middle to late Pleistocene ages for gene genealogies and evidence for early population structures point to a diverse and scattered ancestry associated with a metapopulation history of local extinctions, re-colonization and admixture. A different balance of the same processes has shaped chimpanzee diversity.
authors.affiliation: Biological Anthropology Unit and Statistics Department, University of Oxford, 1 South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3TG, UK. rosalind.harding@bioanthropology.oxford.ac.uk
authors.forename: Rosalind M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Harding
authors.forename: Gil
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: McVean
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003710:Demography; D014644:Genetic Variation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D010163:Paleontology