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I’ve read various studies that believe that our most recent common ancestor lives 2000-4000 years ago.

abhishekjha 5y ago
That seems a much shorter span of time for civilizations to spring up. Egypt, Iraq, India and Europe has history which was already divergent at that point of time.
- irrational 5y ago
  Basically all you need is a single person traveling to a new area and reproducing and people travelled a lot more than our provincial thinking assumes. Just think of Assyria taking entire civilizations and transplanting them in new areas. The mongols, German hordes, Vikings, etc. raping and pillaging around the world. Polynesian sailors having contact with both SE Asia and South America. All the European colonization. Etc.
abc_lisper 5y ago
Not true. Australian aborigines split off 40k years ago. Now, if somehow we interbred with all of them, so that no pure aborigines are left, in a 100 years we move the line to a date that resembles what you suggest. We have to do that every remote tribe on earth. Or if for some reason they are killed.
- jltsiren 5y ago
  Isolated populations never remain fully isolated. If Aboriginal Australians managed to reach Australia tens of thousands of years ago, it makes no sense to assume that nobody ever followed them. It's far more likely that there was constant low-level contact with Austronesian peoples – even if it didn't occur in every generation or every century. And it's also quite likely that some lost sailors ended up in Australia over millennia, and some of them had children. If the level of contact is low enough, it won't leave any measurable genetic traces. After all, if you go back sufficiently many generations, most of your biological ancestors are not your genetic ancestors.
- irrational 5y ago
  Are you saying not true without even reading the studies, speaking from scientific knowledge, or speaking off the cuff?
  - abc_lisper 5y ago
    I was wrong. Just checked Dawkins’ “ancestor tale”.

That seems a much shorter span of time for civilizations to spring up. Egypt, Iraq, India and Europe has history which was already divergent at that point of time.

irrational 5y ago
Basically all you need is a single person traveling to a new area and reproducing and people travelled a lot more than our provincial thinking assumes. Just think of Assyria taking entire civilizations and transplanting them in new areas. The mongols, German hordes, Vikings, etc. raping and pillaging around the world. Polynesian sailors having contact with both SE Asia and South America. All the European colonization. Etc.

abc_lisper 5y ago

Not true. Australian aborigines split off 40k years ago. Now, if somehow we interbred with all of them, so that no pure aborigines are left, in a 100 years we move the line to a date that resembles what you suggest. We have to do that every remote tribe on earth. Or if for some reason they are killed.

jltsiren 5y ago
Isolated populations never remain fully isolated. If Aboriginal Australians managed to reach Australia tens of thousands of years ago, it makes no sense to assume that nobody ever followed them. It's far more likely that there was constant low-level contact with Austronesian peoples – even if it didn't occur in every generation or every century. And it's also quite likely that some lost sailors ended up in Australia over millennia, and some of them had children. If the level of contact is low enough, it won't leave any measurable genetic traces. After all, if you go back sufficiently many generations, most of your biological ancestors are not your genetic ancestors.
irrational 5y ago
Are you saying not true without even reading the studies, speaking from scientific knowledge, or speaking off the cuff?
- abc_lisper 5y ago
  I was wrong. Just checked Dawkins’ “ancestor tale”.