Daily Mail reports a study in Human Evolution with comments at phys.org
A scientific study has prompted speculation that all modern humans could have descended from a solitary pair who lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
Scientists surveyed the genetic ‘bar codes’ of five million animals – including humans – from 100,000 different species and the results have prompted speculation that we sprang from a single pair of adults after a catastrophic event almost wiped out the human race.
These bar codes, or snippets of DNA that reside outside the nuclei of living cells, suggest that it’s not just people who could have come from a single pair of beings, but nine out of every 10 animal species, too.
I have heard that before.