from a solitary pair of adults - who lived 100,000 to 200,000 years ago - after a catastrophic event almost wiped out the entire human race.
The findings were made by scientists who surveyed the genetic 'bar codes' of five million animals - including humans - from 100,000 different species.
And it's not just humans who came from a single pair of beings - these bar codes, or snippets of DNA that reside outside the nuclei of living cells, suggest that nine out of every 10 animal species do, too.
Scientists surveyed the genetic 'bar codes' of five million animals - including humans(Image: Getty Images/Comstock Images)
According to the Bible, Adam and Eve were chosen to be the first people [...]