ArticleScience advances2023
Human generation times across the past 250,000 years.
Article in Science advances, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 67 papers.
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Who cites it
67 citing papers in PubMed.
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- Unraveling the genetic landscape and admixture dynamics of urban populations across Peru.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Analysis of medieval burials from Ibiza reveals genetic and pathogenic diversity during the Islamic period.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Quantitative system drift.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Genetic affinities between the ancient Greek colony of Amvrakia and its metropolis.Genome biology · 2026Article
- Transcriptome remodeling of mouse hearts during postnatal cardiac maturation and under proteotoxic stress.Molecular biology reports · 2026Article
- Bi-allelic TPP1 variants in neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis 2: clinical findings from an Iranian cohort of 20 patients, founder effect, and in silico analyses.Human genetics · 2026Article
- Tracing the evolutionary histories of ultra-rare variants using variational dating of large ancestral recombination graphs.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Environmental Fluoride Compromises Male Fertility: Differentially Modulated miR-34a-5p Targets REST to Regulate Autophagy in Testicular Somatic Cells.Research (Washington, D.C.) · 2026Article
- Whole-Genome Sequencing in Galicia Reveals Male-Biased Pre-Islamic North African Ancestry, Subtle Population Structure, and Microgeographic Patterns of Disease Risk.FASEB journal : official publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology · 2025Article
7 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The generation times of our recent ancestors can tell us about both the biology and social organization of prehistoric humans, placing human evolution on an absolute time scale. We present a method for predicting historical male and female generation times based on changes in the mutation spectrum. Our analyses of whole-genome data reveal an average generation time of 26.9 years across the past 250,000 years, with fathers consistently older (30.7 years) than mothers (23.2 years). Shifts in sex-averaged generation times have been driven primarily by changes to the age of paternity, although we report a substantial increase in female generation times in the recent past. We also find a large difference in generation times among populations, reaching back to a time when all humans occupied Africa.
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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.