Recent human evolution
Biological evolution of Homo sapiens from 50,000 years ago until present
Biological evolution of Homo sapiens from 50,000 years ago until present
Recent human evolution refers to evolutionary adaptation, sexual and natural selection, and genetic drift within Homo sapiens populations, since their separation and dispersal in the Middle Paleolithic about 50,000 years ago. Contrary to popular belief, not only are humans still evolving, their evolution since the dawn of agriculture is faster than ever before. It has been proposed that human culture acts as a selective force in human evolution and has accelerated it; however, this is disputed. With a sufficiently large data set and modern research methods, scientists can study the changes in the frequency of an allele occurring in a tiny subset of the population over a single lifetime, the shortest meaningful time scale in evolution. Comparing a given gene with that of other species enables geneticists to determine whether it is rapidly evolving in humans alone. For example, while human DNA is on average 98% identical to chimpanzee DNA, the so-called Human Accelerated Region 1 (HAR1),...
Open boosters, collect cards and trade them. Free to play.
Play for free