Complexity in human ancestral demography.

Abstract

Demography – the size and structure of popu- lations, and the movement of individuals within and between them – is central to how we describe and understand the events of human evolution. But while archaeology can reveal the presence of people at a certain time and place, and genetic data may indicate their shared ancestry with oth- ers, we rarely have direct evidence for how many people there were or in what groups they lived. Therefore the inference of these and other aspects of the past using demographic models is a focus for many genetic and archaeological studies.