Description
Modern humans left Africa over 60,000 years ago in a migration that
many believe was responsible for nearly all of the human population
that exist outside Africa today.
Newswise — Modern humans left Africa over 60,000 years ago in a
migration that many believe was responsible for nearly all of the
human population that exist outside Africa today.
Now, researchers have revealed that men and women weren’t equal
partners in that exodus. By tracing variations in the X chromosome and
in the non-sex chromosomes, the researchers found evidence that men
probably outnumbered women in that migration. The scientists expect
that their method of comparing X chromosomes with the other non-gender
specific chromosomes will be a powerful tool for future historical and
anthropological studies, since it can illuminate differences in female
and male populations that were inaccessible to previous methods.
While the researchers cannot say for sure why more men than women
participated in the dispersion from Africa—or how natural selection
might also contribute to these genetic patterns—the study’s lead
author, Alon Keinan, notes that these findings are “in line with what
anthropologists have taught us about hunter-gatherer populations, in
which short distance migration is primarily by women and long distance
migration primarily by men.”
These findings are published in Nature Genetics.
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