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No we haven't. We aren't even the same genetically as people living in historical times. There has been a huge amount of human evolution since the rise of agric

No we haven't. We aren't even the same genetically as people living in historical times. There has been a huge amount of human evolution since the rise of agriculture. Living humans are much better adapted to modern society than our hunter gather ancestors. What is probably more accurate is to say most human traits have very long genetic histories. Much the same way as human-like traits can be found in our great ape relatives, traits quite close to modern traits can be found in our ancestors.

pharrington 9y ago
I'm a complete layman regarding biology, so I'm aware my question might be completely stupid. I understand that the genotypes within a species change in response to environmental change. What I do not know is: is the amount of difference between the genetic difference between two random modern humans and the genetic difference between a random modern human and a random 100,000 year old human significant?
- danieltillett 9y ago
  This is a very complex question and it depends on what traits you are looking at. A single nucleotide change at a single loci can cause a very significant change in phenotype. On top of this most evolutionary charge is not caused by new mutations sweeping through the population, but changes in the relatively frequency of different alleles (genes) in the population. Also what makes this a difficult question to answer is we don’t have a good idea what genes contribute to what human traits. We know that individual humans differ, and we know that a large amount of reason for this difference is genetic, what we don’t know is what genes are responsible for this difference. This is a long way of saying we know that the people living 100,000 years ago were genetically different to modern humans, but we don’t know how different and in which particular ways. Evidence points towards us being calmer in large groups (domestication), better able to digest agricultural foods, and better at abstract thinking.

pharrington 9y ago

I'm a complete layman regarding biology, so I'm aware my question might be completely stupid. I understand that the genotypes within a species change in response to environmental change. What I do not know is: is the amount of difference between the genetic difference between two random modern humans and the genetic difference between a random modern human and a random 100,000 year old human significant?

danieltillett 9y ago
This is a very complex question and it depends on what traits you are looking at. A single nucleotide change at a single loci can cause a very significant change in phenotype. On top of this most evolutionary charge is not caused by new mutations sweeping through the population, but changes in the relatively frequency of different alleles (genes) in the population. Also what makes this a difficult question to answer is we don’t have a good idea what genes contribute to what human traits. We know that individual humans differ, and we know that a large amount of reason for this difference is genetic, what we don’t know is what genes are responsible for this difference. This is a long way of saying we know that the people living 100,000 years ago were genetically different to modern humans, but we don’t know how different and in which particular ways. Evidence points towards us being calmer in large groups (domestication), better able to digest agricultural foods, and better at abstract thinking.