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jarandhel: (Default)
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009 03:22 pm
Identical Ancestors Point

Apparently there is a point, when you trace genealogies far enough back in time, where you can break the humans who were alive then down into two groups: those who have left no genetic descendants, and those who are genetically related to all currently-living modern humans.

This point is estimated to be between 15,000 and 5,000 years ago.  This gives us a range of somewhere between the domestication of the Dog and the Bronze Age.

So, unless a hypothetical ancestor (supernatural or otherwise) is more recent than that time period, it's just as likely that (if they left any descendants at all) everyone on earth is descended from them.

Not, as I've already shown, that this means they would have necessarily inherited any DNA from them.  The chances of even inheriting one base pair from someone that far back is roughly 1 in 2.194 septendecillionNo, I didn't make that word up.