Learn about the "magic age" of having children over the past 250,000 years!
Scientists have discovered that the most common age for people to become parents over the past 250,000 years was 27.
They also found that fathers were always older than mothers, with an average age gap of 7.5 years, according to a study from Indiana University.
A child's DNA contains between 25 and 75 genetic mutations that distinguish him from his parents, and the types of mutations that occur depend on the age of the parents.
The researchers used 25 million genetic variants in the children.
Co-author Dr Richard Wang said: “The story of human history has been pieced together from a variety of sources: written records, archaeological finds, fossils, etc. Our genomes, the DNA in each of our cells, provide a kind of manuscript of human evolutionary history. Our findings from our genetic analysis do some of the things we know from other sources - such as the recent rise in parental age - but also provide a richer understanding of the demographics of ancient humans."
These findings contribute to a better understanding of our shared history.
Generational information can provide insights about historical events.
Co-author Dr Matthew Hahn said: "Through our research on modern humans, we noticed that we could predict the age at which people would have children from the types of DNA mutations they left to their children."
They noticed that a specific type of genetic mutation, known as a de novo mutation, was linked to the ages of the child's parents.
De novo mutations are genetic changes that appear for the first time in a family member, and are the result of a mutation in an egg or sperm, or that occurred during fetal development.
Using the millions of de novo mutations in children with parents whose ages are known at conception, the researchers modeled the relationship between the change and the age of the parents.
Dr Han added: "We then applied this model to our human ancestors to determine the age at which our ancestors gave birth."
He revealed that the average age of men who became fathers during the past 250,000 years was 30.7 years, and the average age of women who became mothers was 23.2 years.
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