Shellfish & the human bottleneck
17th December 2009
Turns out, somewhere between 130,000 to 190,000 years ago, the human species was reduced to less than 1000 breeding individuals–just a few thousand people in total. Ancient, naturally driven climate change pushed our species to the brink, said Curtis Marean, Ph.D., a professor with the Institute of Human Origins and the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.
What saved us? According to Marean, the answer may be “shellfish”.
Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.