[OC] Animated genetic map reveals how human ancestors migrated across continents over thousands of years

6 comments

1. Fascinating visualization! How does the animation account for recent genetic discoveries about interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans?

2. Very pretty! But what the fuck is a “kya?”

3. Does this suggest humanity started around what is now the Central African Republic? I had understood East Africa to have been the cradle of our species, so wonder if there has been some new development in our understanding. I would find it surprising if it was the case because we’re grassland adapted and central Africa is very thick jungle, a strange place for an upright ape to begin.

4. I wonder how white supremacists feel about this… 🤔

5. Damn, these Native Americans really were Native

6. Might not [OC], especially since OP hasn’t followed rule 3. This is Figure 2 from Grundler et al. (2025) published recently in *Science*: [https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adp4642](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adp4642)

   Edit: The article in unfortunately paywalled. The bioRxiv pre-print is here: [https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2024/08/19/2024.03.27.586858.full.pdf](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2024/08/19/2024.03.27.586858.full.pdf) A press release from the University of Michigan was published in [phys.org](http://phys.org) here: [https://phys.org/news/2025-03-genetic-tree-movie-portrait-ancestry.html](https://phys.org/news/2025-03-genetic-tree-movie-portrait-ancestry.html)

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