How Did Humans Almost Go Extinct? (Only 1,280 Left)

900,000 years ago, the ancestors of every human alive almost disappeared. According to a 2023 study in Science, our ancestors crashed from around 100,000 breeding individuals to only about 1,280, and stayed on the edge of extinction for roughly 117,000 years. In this video: how scientists found this hidden catastrophe in the DNA of living people, what the climate was doing to our ancestors, the mysterious gap in the fossil record, the 900,000-year-old footprints on an English beach, why some scientists disagree, how fire may have saved us, and how the crisis may have changed the human body forever. ⏱ Chapters 0:00 Only 1,280 left 0:55 How DNA revealed the crash 2:06 The numbers behind the catastrophe 3:24 What almost wiped us out 4:40 The missing bones 5:06 Footprints on an ancient beach 6:07 Who were these people? 6:33 Is it really true? The debate 7:28 How they survived: fire 8:32 The change that made us human 9:29 Why you're here 📚 Sources Hu et al. (2023), Genomic inference of a severe human bottleneck during the Early to Middle Pleistocene transition, Science Deng et al. (2024), critique of the bottleneck inference, Genetics Ashton et al. (2014), Hominin footprints from early Pleistocene deposits at Happisburgh, UK, PLOS ONE Goren-Inbar et al. (2004), Evidence of hominin control of fire at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel, Science #humanevolution #ancienthumans #history