Posted on 07/01/2006 4:12:22 PM PDT by blam
The 2001 'official census' was conducted by helicopter from the air since no one can land on their island. The 39 figure was how many individuals were specifically identified by the aerial census, whereas the 250 estimate is arrived at from the size of their settlement (number & type of structures, etc).
I'm not sure it would have to work that way - so long as this individual's progeny travelled far and wide, the propagation of their ancestor's gene wouldn't require anything other than human nature.
If you got some of your offspring into the Mongol Hordes, you'd have a good shot at being related to most of Eurasia at some point in the future.
But my point is that some of these groups appear to be totally and completely insulated from outside genetic input since well before the Christian era or even the era of Tutankhamen.
This poorly written article has left it readers, almost to a "man", completely misled about what is being said.
He is NOT saying that all humans descended from this single individual, like Lucy or the seven original "mothers", or even Adam and Eve; only that all humans alive today, descended from thousands or even millions of individuals, all share this hypothetical ancestor, that his genes have blended out into all humanity.
Or, even if you go back a generation or two more than that we'll find we share even more ancestors.
It's kind of like saying that statisticallly, every glass of water has a litttle of Genghis Khan's urine in it. But then, if that's true, then there is also a bit of Shakespreare's too, in most every glass, or even Winston Churchill's in one glass a year, maybe. It's all just probabilities.
Maybe true, but what's the point?
Good point. Xenophobia (for better or worse) is part of human nature. Given the fierce competition for territory and resources that must have gone on, it appears that until recently only the smartest and most vicious of our ancestors survived to pass on their genes.
I know I will get flamed severely and called racist, Nazi, etc. for saying this- but by eliminating such competition and providing massively expensive medical care in order that folks with genetic problems can survive long enough to reproduce, what effect are we having on the gene pool?
That would have been the explosion of Toba that nearly wiped us out.
The trouble is that Genghis Khan of your example might have lived on Mars. Martian water [assuming there is such] is mixing, and so is water on Earth, but to get them both mixing would require arrival of water-bearing meteorite and enough time for its water load to diffuse.
But then the sensational title for the piece would be impossible. [Will this thread now degenerate into a evo-creo spatfest?]
'250KYA tools' please explain.
The last common ancestor (whoever he or she was) was just the last of a long line of people from whom we are all descended. You are assuming for some reason that the last would also be the first. The first might have been a very simple cell, or it might have been a very scummy body of water we call "RNA-world."
PS. I did not mean to come across quite so brusk in my last reply to you, but I was in a rush and it sounds a lot more abrupt than I intended now that I read it again.
I've read Origin of Species and Descent of Man and was not struck by such a passage. Well, one can nod a bit reading the old guy here and there. I believe he must have been aware of asexuals even in his day, though. He surely must have postulated as we do now that simple asexuals came first.
I know what you meant, and I pointed out the Toba explosion killed off roughly 96% of our paleo-ancestry, leaving only about 10,000 individuals world wide, from 10,000,000 or more.
No, it doesn't. The "last (i.e. most recent) common ancestor" is merely the most recent, not the only or the first. They, too, had ancestors, and so on back a long, long way.
No, it isn't -- try reading the article. This has nothing to do with mtDNA.
-Eve (or the various "first humans" talked about in the legends of most religions and tribes) -Mrs. Noah -The survivors of the last supervolcano eruption 70,000 years ago
Again, read the article. This has nothing to do with "first ancestors" or "only ancestors". Whowever the "last common ancestor" was, they had a lot of company, and many of their other contemporaries are our ancestors as well.
(however the story itself was barnyard-dog stupid)
One *common* ancestor, and many *other* ancestors who were *not* common ancestors.
The common ancestor had plenty of company (including a spouse), and many other people living at the same time also have modern descendants.
Fellatious? Well, look on the bright side. Maybe they're all cunning linguists.
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