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全球人口将达80亿！人类数量的增长历程，你了解吗？
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Since the emergence of the first humans in Africa over 2 million years ago, the world’s population has ballooned. The global population will reach 8 billion by Nov 15, and is likely to increase at a slower pace in the next few decades. Let’s take a look at the main chapters in the growth of humanity.
First humans
The oldest fossils from the earliest known humans date back 2.8 million years and were found in east Africa. But estimates of the number of people that populated the Earth remained highly unreliable until the 19th century. What we do know is that our ancestors were hunter-gatherers, and they had few children compared to later settled populations in order to maintain their nomadic lifestyle. The globe’s population did increase over time but very, very slowly.
First baby boom
The introduction of agriculture in the Neolithic era brought the first known major population leap. With the development of agriculture, people’s lives became better, which caused birth rates to increase. However, the domestication(驯养) of animals caused humans to contract new diseases. Child mortality(死亡率) rates were particularly high, with a third of all children dying before their first birthday, and another third before they turned 18. There was huge mortality but also a permanent baby boom.
Black Death
The Black Death brought the population to a sudden halt(停止) in the Middle Ages. In just eight years, it wiped(消灭) out up to 60 percent of the populations of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. As a result of the Black Death, the human population dropped between 1300 and 1400, from 429 to 374 million.
Eight billion, and counting
From the 19th century on, the population began to explode, due largely to the development of modern medicine and the industrialization of agriculture, which boosted global food supplies. Since 1800, the world’s population has jumped eight-fold, from an estimated 1 billion to 8 billion.
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