What is the estimated population size of human ancestors during speciation?

At the end of XX century. molecular biology and genetics began to contribute to the solution of the problem of human origin. To clarify the time and place of the appearance of a person of a modern type, molecular genetic methods were used. Thus, an analysis of the global distribution of the variability of the structure of mitochondrial DNA, conducted by American researchers, allowed them to assume that people of the modern type appeared south of the Sahara about 200 thousand years ago. Scientists have found that the population during speciation was about 10,000 people.