Effective Population Size of Our Ancestors in Africa

 
John Hawks has posted an interesting discussion of the effective population size of human ancestors. He concludes that N_e=34,000 during the late stone age (about one million years ago). According to Hawks, this means there were about 100,000 to 300,000 individuals spread throughout Africa at this time [Did humans face extinction 70,000 years ago?].

I don't understand the math, or the data. As a general rule, I'm skeptical of these calculations because so many papers seem to reach different conclusions. The really nice part of John's posting is that he tries to explain the assumptions and possible sources of error. It's worth a read just to get a feel for the kinds of things that are going on in population genetics.

There are no comments allowed on john hawks weblog. I'm sure if you post questions here he will answer.

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