The Extinction Event That Once Reduced Humanity To 1,300 People

To be clear, when we talk about “humans” almost going extinct 900,000 to 800,000 years ago, we’re not talking about anatomically modern Homo sapiens. As Smithsonian Magazine outlines, we’ve tallied 22 different human species going all the way back to 7 million years ago and Sahelanthropus tchadensis, the first human in west central Africa to show signs of upright posture and smaller canine teeth. By the time the population bottleneck happened the key human species on the scene was Homo erectus, the most successful and long-surviving human species that existed all the way from 1.89 million to 110,000 years ago. 

It’s Homo erectus who bore the brunt of the population bottleneck. The Guardian speculates that the extreme pressure to survive and the environmental conditions of the time might have directly contributed to speciation — the branch-like divergence of different species — and the rise of subsequent human species: Homo heidelbergensis (the first humans to control fire), Homo neanderthalensis (our closest human cousins), and us, Homo sapiens. A handy species family tree at Smithsonian Magazine outlines the speciation of humanity through time, including during the recently discovered population bottleneck.

Professor Chris Stringer at the Natural Museum of London told The Guardian of the 117,000-year-long bottleneck and its 1280-human population, “It’s an extraordinary length of time. It’s remarkable that we did get through at all. For a population of that size, you just need one bad climate event, an epidemic, a volcanic eruption and you’re gone.”