Peter Forster (geneticist)

Peter Forster FRSB (born 27 June 1967) is a geneticist researching the prehistoric origins and ancestry of mankind.

At the Heinrich-Pette-Institut for Virology and Immunology in Hamburg, he specialised in genetics and obtained his PhD degree in 1997 in biology on the topic of "Dispersal and differentiation of modern Homo sapiens analysed with mitochondrial DNA".

Peter Forster discovered on the basis of modern and ancient DNA that there has only been a single successful migration out of Africa during prehistory, and he dated this emigration to around 60,000 years ago.

The size of this emigrant group, according to his estimate, was less than 200 people (BBC 2009: African tribe populated rest of the world).

[3] To obtain these results, Forster has compiled, proofread and corrected DNA- and language databases, and developed, in collaboration with his colleagues, phylogenetic network analysis of mitochondrial DNA, Y-chromosomal DNA, and linguistic data, as well as the concept of the mtDNA- and Y-chromosomal "clock".