How much wisdom (sapientia) would humans be able to accumulate? Homo sapiens sapiens is on the point to add another “sapiens” to its scientific title: according to a new study released yesterday, not only that human evolution seems not to have ended, but the process’ pace has been increasing in the past 40,000 years.

The recent study was conducted because a team of researchers rightfully wondered how the abstract term of “evolution” would look like in figures. The team of anthropologists studied as well the major differences that appeared between early people and the current Homo sapiens sapiens. Findings were astonishing, as they showed that our species is still in a hurry to evolve.

According to this recent study, it seems that the pace of human evolution has been increasing at an amazing rate since our ancestors started spreading through Europe, Asia and Africa about 40,000 years ago. People evolved because their number had also started to increase and thus, offered more opportunity for genetic mutations to take place.

Scientists estimated that in 9000 B.C. our whole planet was populated only by five million people. Today, we are no less than 6.5 billion and still counting. Because of this astonishing numerical increase from the past 10,000 years, people evolved like no other species. According to anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin, nowadays people are genetically more different from ancestors living 5,000 years ago than those humans were different from the Neanderthals, who had vanished 30,000 years ago.

The team of anthropologists examined more than 3 million variants of DNA in 269 people for this study and identified almost 1,800 genes that have been widely adopted in recent times because of the evolutionary benefit they brought. "We found very many human genes undergoing selection," said anthropologist Gregory Cochran of the University of Utah, who added also that "Most [of these human genes] are very recent, so much so that the rate of human evolution over the past few thousand years is far greater than it has been over the past few million years."

Scientists believe that “the invention” of agriculture was the turning point in humans’ evolution. About 10,000 years ago, people made the transition from living from hunting to actively raising crops and domesticated animals. Thus, they started to set up homes and to found cultures. And there was not turning back!

The only question that remains is whether we are able to evolve forever…