7 ms·

Oldest family tree created using DNA

65 points by zeristor 5y ago

polycaster 5y ago
Click bait. It’s an old family tree, yes, but not a large one as you might expect. It’s 5 successive generations living 5.7k years ago (still impressive).
- ChrisKnott 5y ago
  I really think dang needs to add something to the guidelines about calling stuff clickbait. This is a perfectly reasonable headline.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - OJFord 5y ago
    I wouldn't call it clickbait, but I did read it the same way - a tree from now reaching back to the oldest ancestors made possible by DNA, rather than (as it means) the oldest 'sub-tree', incomplete on both ends, created using DNA. If it were to be improved I think the archaeological dig aspect could be highlighted, i.e. I assume using DNA samples on a dig to create a family tree for the entombed isn't novel; what's new here is that these are older samples than that's previously been achieved with (and probably they had to do some novel things to make it work, hence the paper that I haven't read).
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> Most of those found in the tomb were descended from four women who all had children with the same man. > The right to use the site was based on descent from one man. > But people were buried in different parts of the tomb based on the first-generation matriarch they were descended from. > This suggests that the first-generation women held a socially significant place in the memories of this community. Are we supposed to be surprised now that people were entombed with their relatives? When people keep close track of each other's ancestry, that's female empowerment? What societies, by this standard, did not accord women a "socially significant place" in their memories? What is this supposed to mean? --- I don't understand the guy who's marked half-green, half-yellow. It looks like he is descended from a male-line yellow father and the implied wife of a male-line green father. The wife was presumably unrelated to the family. But that makes half-and-half guy all yellow and no green. --- > There are also indications that "stepsons" were adopted into the family, the researchers say - males whose mother was buried in the tomb but not their biological father, and whose mother had also had children with a male related to the original founder. Adopted into the family? According to this same paragraph, they were already part of the family when the "adoption" occurred. I've read that societies differ as to whether, when a man dies, the dead man's male relatives are forbidden from marrying the widow (since that would be "incest") or obligated to do so. It looks like this society leaned more toward the second view. That interpretation is supported a bit in that it kind of looks like Yellow Wife was senior to Green Wife (since a gen-3 Yellow man mated with a gen-2 Green wife), and Yellow Wife only has children with the patriarch of the tomb while Green Wife (and Pink Wife) also had children with someone else. Maybe Green Wife and Pink Wife were still marriageable when the patriarch died. > While the tomb reveals evidence of polygyny - men having children with multiple women - it also shows that polyandry was also widespread: women having children with multiple men. On the contrary, no evidence has been presented that the women had multiple simultaneous partners. We can know the approximate age at death -- but can we know the order in which the children were born? EDIT: I notice half-and-half guy was buried in the north of the tomb, as befitted descendants of the Green family, and not the south as befitted the Yellow family. His genuinely-Green half-brother was buried in the south, and the article notes that some people who should have been buried in the north were buried in the south likely due to the collapse of an interior passage in the tomb. This would imply that full-Green guy died after half-and-half guy. Sadly, that doesn't really suggest any conclusions about who was born when.
- yholio 5y ago
  >When people keep close track of each other's ancestry, that's female empowerment? The idea was that offspring of different females were spatially segregated in the tomb. If the females were powerless members of the patriarch's harem, the social status of their offspring would depend only on their relation with the common father or some other brotherly ranking. The different family trees that emerge suggest that these matriarchs had at least some power in the later development of the community.
  - toyg 5y ago
    Or simply that the community "classified" children by their mothers, which is the obvious approach: as the Romans later stated, pater semper incertus est, "the father is always in doubt". That doesn't involve any power attribution.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    > If the females were powerless members of the patriarch's harem, the social status of their offspring would depend only on their relation with the common father or some other brotherly ranking. If this isn't true for some well-documented societies like Imperial China or the Ottoman Turks, why would we believe it's true of people in prehistoric Britain?
    - yholio 5y ago
      Because it's not true for women neither in imperial China nor the Ottoman empire, history shows women wielded significant political power in those societies, up to and including influencing imperial succession to favor their offspring.
      - thaumasiotes 5y ago
        > history shows women wielded significant political power in those societies, up to and including influencing imperial succession to favor their offspring. Yes, of course, that's true of all past, present, and future societies. And for that reason, it isn't what people are talking about when they ask what the status of women was in society. What do you think the blurb in the article is trying to say?
dav_Oz 5y ago
I wonder under which "rules" polygyny/polyandry where tolerated. I'd imagine it could be also explained by "changelings" or "widowing".
- kvgr 5y ago
  Or rape and infidelity.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - toyg 5y ago
    Which are indeed more likely between members of the same family, today like back then.
- TomK32 5y ago
  My bet is not on polygyny but widowing an re-marrying (if that was already a thing). Giving birth was a dangerous event back then as it is today for many women around the world, including large parts of the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_mortality_in_the_United_States#Comparisons_with_other_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_mortality_in_the_Unit...
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Even with ancient childbirth death rates (~1%), that would be an unusually high number of deaths. Could be the explanation, but I doubt childbirth is the driving factor.
- hnuser847 5y ago
  Given that this family was wealthy and powerful enough to have a tomb erected, those cases of polygyny could have been due to political marriages. It was pretty common in the ancient world for male relatives to offer up their female relatives as a way to solidify an alliance, even if the woman was already married.
charcircuit 5y ago
Wouldn't the oldest family tree start with Adam and Eve?
- teekert 5y ago
  I don't think anyone seriously working in the molecular biology field believes in Adam and Eve, at least not in the strict 6000 years ago, created by god -fashion. The fictional family relations portrayed in the bible can hardly be called "family trees", right? If you do think this is valid and being written down in an old book is enough for the claim of oldest family tree, there are probably older ones, perhaps in hieroglyphs in the pyramid? Idk, I'm not an expert.
  - adolph 5y ago
    In human genetics, the Mitochondrial Eve (also mt-Eve, mt-MRCA) is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all living humans. In other words, she is defined as the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line purely through their mothers and through the mothers of those mothers, back until all lines converge on one woman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve
    - teekert 5y ago
      Western scientists call her Eve because of our culture’s Judeo-Christian (or Abrahamic?) roots. We could have also called her “Ask” if we were Norse mythology inclined. But I’m just trying to sound intelligent here while I should be working on something boring, I’m not even sure if OP was serious :)
      - richardfontana 5y ago
        "Ask" is the first male human in Norse mythology, and Embla the first female human. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ask_and_Embla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ask_and_Embla
      - 5y ago
divbzero 5y ago
The article cites this research paper [1] which provides a map of the tomb [2]. [1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04241-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04241-4 [2]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04241-4/figures/2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04241-4/figures/2
- OJFord 5y ago
  Why don't they ever seem to link it? > The study is published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature. but no link. I assume the author at least read the abstract, so it seems it would be essentially effortless to add for the obviously minority of readers that care.
  - RunningDroid 5y ago
    They don't link to it because the BBC is part of the legacy media that has not fully adapted to the web.
    - OJFord 5y ago
      That's a bizarre suggestion - the BBC is big (and was early) into tech and the web, has a large staff of our peers, and has arguably never published in a non-tech/modern way. It could conceivably have reported such a story over time on the radio, television, teletext, and the web; and has been operating on all of them since the dawn of them.
Danborg 5y ago
Is anyone alive today that is descended from this tree?
- TomK32 5y ago
  Most likely we are all (all as in everyone on planet Earth) descendents of that family. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-all-more-closely-related-than-we-commonly-think/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-all-mo...
  - adolph 5y ago
    Not necessarily from this particular set of people though. Reich: In Europe where we have the best data currently—although that will change over the coming years—we know a lot about how people have migrated. We know of multiple layers of population replacement over the last 50,000 years. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/ancient-dna-history/554798/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/ancient-...
    - ema 5y ago
      I wouldn't bet on everyone alive today being descended from them, but at least 90% is pretty likely.
      - OJFord 5y ago
        Why? Related to them, sure, but not descended directly from that 'set of people' versus a different branch from common ancestors, i.e. their cousins.
        ema 5y ago
        There are about 200 generations between now and then. Your ancestor set needs to only grow by about 10% each generation to include everyone who was alive back then and therefore also them. In a perfectly mixed population your ancestor set grows 100% each generation until it includes everyone. Now humans aren't a perfectly mixed population but you only need a few migrants each century between different societies to reach 10% because in each society it's much closer to 100% (until it includes ~everyone in that society).

65 points by zeristor 5y ago

Click bait. It’s an old family tree, yes, but not a large one as you might expect. It’s 5 successive generations living 5.7k years ago (still impressive).

ChrisKnott 5y ago
I really think dang needs to add something to the guidelines about calling stuff clickbait. This is a perfectly reasonable headline.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- OJFord 5y ago
  I wouldn't call it clickbait, but I did read it the same way - a tree from now reaching back to the oldest ancestors made possible by DNA, rather than (as it means) the oldest 'sub-tree', incomplete on both ends, created using DNA. If it were to be improved I think the archaeological dig aspect could be highlighted, i.e. I assume using DNA samples on a dig to create a family tree for the entombed isn't novel; what's new here is that these are older samples than that's previously been achieved with (and probably they had to do some novel things to make it work, hence the paper that I haven't read).

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> Most of those found in the tomb were descended from four women who all had children with the same man. > The right to use the site was based on descent from one man. > But people were buried in different parts of the tomb based on the first-generation matriarch they were descended from. > This suggests that the first-generation women held a socially significant place in the memories of this community. Are we supposed to be surprised now that people were entombed with their relatives? When people keep close track of each other's ancestry, that's female empowerment? What societies, by this standard, did not accord women a "socially significant place" in their memories? What is this supposed to mean? --- I don't understand the guy who's marked half-green, half-yellow. It looks like he is descended from a male-line yellow father and the implied wife of a male-line green father. The wife was presumably unrelated to the family. But that makes half-and-half guy all yellow and no green. --- > There are also indications that "stepsons" were adopted into the family, the researchers say - males whose mother was buried in the tomb but not their biological father, and whose mother had also had children with a male related to the original founder. Adopted into the family? According to this same paragraph, they were already part of the family when the "adoption" occurred. I've read that societies differ as to whether, when a man dies, the dead man's male relatives are forbidden from marrying the widow (since that would be "incest") or obligated to do so. It looks like this society leaned more toward the second view. That interpretation is supported a bit in that it kind of looks like Yellow Wife was senior to Green Wife (since a gen-3 Yellow man mated with a gen-2 Green wife), and Yellow Wife only has children with the patriarch of the tomb while Green Wife (and Pink Wife) also had children with someone else. Maybe Green Wife and Pink Wife were still marriageable when the patriarch died. > While the tomb reveals evidence of polygyny - men having children with multiple women - it also shows that polyandry was also widespread: women having children with multiple men. On the contrary, no evidence has been presented that the women had multiple simultaneous partners. We can know the approximate age at death -- but can we know the order in which the children were born? EDIT: I notice half-and-half guy was buried in the north of the tomb, as befitted descendants of the Green family, and not the south as befitted the Yellow family. His genuinely-Green half-brother was buried in the south, and the article notes that some people who should have been buried in the north were buried in the south likely due to the collapse of an interior passage in the tomb. This would imply that full-Green guy died after half-and-half guy. Sadly, that doesn't really suggest any conclusions about who was born when.

yholio 5y ago
>When people keep close track of each other's ancestry, that's female empowerment? The idea was that offspring of different females were spatially segregated in the tomb. If the females were powerless members of the patriarch's harem, the social status of their offspring would depend only on their relation with the common father or some other brotherly ranking. The different family trees that emerge suggest that these matriarchs had at least some power in the later development of the community.
- toyg 5y ago
  Or simply that the community "classified" children by their mothers, which is the obvious approach: as the Romans later stated, pater semper incertus est, "the father is always in doubt". That doesn't involve any power attribution.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  > If the females were powerless members of the patriarch's harem, the social status of their offspring would depend only on their relation with the common father or some other brotherly ranking. If this isn't true for some well-documented societies like Imperial China or the Ottoman Turks, why would we believe it's true of people in prehistoric Britain?
  - yholio 5y ago
    Because it's not true for women neither in imperial China nor the Ottoman empire, history shows women wielded significant political power in those societies, up to and including influencing imperial succession to favor their offspring.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      > history shows women wielded significant political power in those societies, up to and including influencing imperial succession to favor their offspring. Yes, of course, that's true of all past, present, and future societies. And for that reason, it isn't what people are talking about when they ask what the status of women was in society. What do you think the blurb in the article is trying to say?

dav_Oz 5y ago

I wonder under which "rules" polygyny/polyandry where tolerated. I'd imagine it could be also explained by "changelings" or "widowing".

kvgr 5y ago
Or rape and infidelity.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- toyg 5y ago
  Which are indeed more likely between members of the same family, today like back then.
TomK32 5y ago
My bet is not on polygyny but widowing an re-marrying (if that was already a thing). Giving birth was a dangerous event back then as it is today for many women around the world, including large parts of the USA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_mortality_in_the_United_States#Comparisons_with_other_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_mortality_in_the_Unit...
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Even with ancient childbirth death rates (~1%), that would be an unusually high number of deaths. Could be the explanation, but I doubt childbirth is the driving factor.
hnuser847 5y ago
Given that this family was wealthy and powerful enough to have a tomb erected, those cases of polygyny could have been due to political marriages. It was pretty common in the ancient world for male relatives to offer up their female relatives as a way to solidify an alliance, even if the woman was already married.

charcircuit 5y ago

Wouldn't the oldest family tree start with Adam and Eve?

teekert 5y ago
I don't think anyone seriously working in the molecular biology field believes in Adam and Eve, at least not in the strict 6000 years ago, created by god -fashion. The fictional family relations portrayed in the bible can hardly be called "family trees", right? If you do think this is valid and being written down in an old book is enough for the claim of oldest family tree, there are probably older ones, perhaps in hieroglyphs in the pyramid? Idk, I'm not an expert.
- adolph 5y ago
  In human genetics, the Mitochondrial Eve (also mt-Eve, mt-MRCA) is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all living humans. In other words, she is defined as the most recent woman from whom all living humans descend in an unbroken line purely through their mothers and through the mothers of those mothers, back until all lines converge on one woman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve
  - teekert 5y ago
    Western scientists call her Eve because of our culture’s Judeo-Christian (or Abrahamic?) roots. We could have also called her “Ask” if we were Norse mythology inclined. But I’m just trying to sound intelligent here while I should be working on something boring, I’m not even sure if OP was serious :)
    - richardfontana 5y ago
      "Ask" is the first male human in Norse mythology, and Embla the first female human. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ask_and_Embla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ask_and_Embla
    - 5y ago

divbzero 5y ago

The article cites this research paper [1] which provides a map of the tomb [2]. [1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04241-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04241-4 [2]: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04241-4/figures/2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04241-4/figures/2

OJFord 5y ago
Why don't they ever seem to link it? > The study is published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature. but no link. I assume the author at least read the abstract, so it seems it would be essentially effortless to add for the obviously minority of readers that care.
- RunningDroid 5y ago
  They don't link to it because the BBC is part of the legacy media that has not fully adapted to the web.
  - OJFord 5y ago
    That's a bizarre suggestion - the BBC is big (and was early) into tech and the web, has a large staff of our peers, and has arguably never published in a non-tech/modern way. It could conceivably have reported such a story over time on the radio, television, teletext, and the web; and has been operating on all of them since the dawn of them.

Danborg 5y ago

Is anyone alive today that is descended from this tree?

TomK32 5y ago
Most likely we are all (all as in everyone on planet Earth) descendents of that family. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-all-more-closely-related-than-we-commonly-think/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-all-mo...
- adolph 5y ago
  Not necessarily from this particular set of people though. Reich: In Europe where we have the best data currently—although that will change over the coming years—we know a lot about how people have migrated. We know of multiple layers of population replacement over the last 50,000 years. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/ancient-dna-history/554798/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/ancient-...
  - ema 5y ago
    I wouldn't bet on everyone alive today being descended from them, but at least 90% is pretty likely.
    - OJFord 5y ago
      Why? Related to them, sure, but not descended directly from that 'set of people' versus a different branch from common ancestors, i.e. their cousins.
      - ema 5y ago
        There are about 200 generations between now and then. Your ancestor set needs to only grow by about 10% each generation to include everyone who was alive back then and therefore also them. In a perfectly mixed population your ancestor set grows 100% each generation until it includes everyone. Now humans aren't a perfectly mixed population but you only need a few migrants each century between different societies to reach 10% because in each society it's much closer to 100% (until it includes ~everyone in that society).