Citation
Genetic Traces of Ancient Demography
TL;DR
Human effective population size estimated at ~10,000
Estimates human effective population size at approximately 10,000 based on genetic diversity patterns. Discusses the population bottleneck around 70,000 years ago, illustrating how effective population size can be dramatically smaller than census size.
Demonstrates that even humanity's 8 billion census population has an effective size of only 10,000-20,000 due to historical bottlenecks - a powerful illustration of how organizational 'effective size' for decisions may be tiny despite large headcounts.
Key Findings from Harpending & al. (1998)
- Human effective population size estimated at ~10,000
- Evidence for population bottleneck ~70,000 years ago
- Census size (8 billion) vastly exceeds effective size (10,000-20,000)