ReviewNature2021
Origins of modern human ancestry.
Review in Nature, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 97 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
97 citing papers in PubMed.
- Ancient DNA and Human Physiology.Physiology (Bethesda, Md.) · 2026Review
- Gut microbes that trace ancient human journeys.Nature · 2026Article
- Article
- Severe bottleneck of ancient Homo populations: insights from computational modeling and relevant fossil evidence.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Long-term isolation and archaic introgression shape functional genetic variation in Near Oceania.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- Homo luzonensis and the role of homoplasy in the morphology of hominin insular species.Cladistics : the international journal of the Willi Hennig Society · 2026Article
- Deciphering the genetic diversity in the Arabian Peninsula and Africa: insights from Y-STR data.Forensic science, medicine, and pathology · 2026Article
- Pan-African model explainsbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Malaria shaped human spatial organization for the past 74 thousand years.Science advances · 2026Article
- Inferring hominin history with recurrent gene flow from single unphased genomes and a two-locus statistic.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Evidence from Buhais Rockshelter for human settlement in Arabia between 60,000 and 16,000 years ago.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Regional variability in the Acheulian to Middle Stone Age transition in southern Africa.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Article
- The genetic architecture of human skin pigmentation: evolution and adaptation across global populations.Frontiers in genetics · 2026Review
- Coancestry superposed on admixed populations yields measures of relatedness at individual-level resolution.PLoS computational biology · 2025Article
- A simple analytical model for Neanderthal disappearance due to genetic dilution by recurrent small-scale immigrations of modern humans.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- ESR1 Variants and Subcontinental Genomic Ancestry: Insights from the 1000 Genomes Project and Native American Populations.Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics · 2025Article
- Parallels and discrepancies between non-native species introductions and human migration.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Decoding the Dynamics of Cultural Change: A Cultural Evolution Approach to the Psychology of Acculturation.Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc · 2025Review
37 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
New finds in the palaeoanthropological and genomic records have changed our view of the origins of modern human ancestry. Here we review our current understanding of how the ancestry of modern humans around the globe can be traced into the deep past, and which ancestors it passes through during our journey back in time. We identify three key phases that are surrounded by major questions, and which will be at the frontiers of future research. The most recent phase comprises the worldwide expansion of modern humans between 40 and 60 thousand years ago (ka) and their last known contacts with archaic groups such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. The second phase is associated with a broadly construed African origin of modern human diversity between 60 and 300 ka. The oldest phase comprises the complex separation of modern human ancestors from archaic human groups from 0.3 to 1 million years ago. We argue that no specific point in time can currently be identified at which modern human ancestry was confined to a limited birthplace, and that patterns of the first appearance of anatomical or behavioural traits that are used to define Homo sapiens are consistent with a range of evolutionary histories.
Indexed as
Identifiers
33568824What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.