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0 pointsspullara12y ago0 comments

"You are descended from almost every single human being alive 1,000 years ago." Um. No.

0 comments

Yes actually. Here is an explanation why. http://dgmweb.net/Ancillary/OnE/NumberAncestors.html

It is obviously false. There are many people that were alive 1000 years ago that you have no relation to due to geographic separation. Just because you can analyze something using statistics doesn't make it right. It even explains some of the discrepancy in the description of that chart — your ancestors are not unique and therefore the entire chart is just statistical hyperbole.

Houshalter12y ago

I said almost everyone, obviously you aren't (likely) related to remote islanders. However you'd be surprised how much mixing there is between population. All you need is one individual from another population to mix with another and within a few generations he is everyone's ancestors.

I'm not certain how much mixing there was between the new and the old world. However it did happen a lot and it's likely a large number of people do have some new and old world ancestors.

maxerickson12y ago

You are overstating the amount of mixing between populations (and somewhat discounting the mixing within populations).

1000 years ago, people in villages and towns were regularly marrying their (2,3,4) cousins and rarely marrying people from 'different lands'.

Another way to look at it: for 1 person to become the ancestor of just several thousand people takes 'a few generations'. Getting to whole populations takes lots of generations.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

Houshalter12y ago

Yes actually. Here is an explanation why. http://dgmweb.net/Ancillary/OnE/NumberAncestors.html

spullaraOP12y ago

Houshalter12y ago

I'm not certain how much mixing there was between the new and the old world. However it did happen a lot and it's likely a large number of people do have some new and old world ancestors.

maxerickson12y ago

You are overstating the amount of mixing between populations (and somewhat discounting the mixing within populations).

1000 years ago, people in villages and towns were regularly marrying their (2,3,4) cousins and rarely marrying people from 'different lands'.

Another way to look at it: for 1 person to become the ancestor of just several thousand people takes 'a few generations'. Getting to whole populations takes lots of generations.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse