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It's not just about how many sons he himself had (4). It's also about how many sons his sons had (quite a lot) and so on. His high social status not only let hi
by im3w1l 4y ago
It's not just about how many sons he himself had (4). It's also about how many sons his sons had (quite a lot) and so on. His high social status not only let him have many sons but also helped his descendants (not forever, but for some time) with that. Consider also the possibility that his Y-chromosome may be genetically superior. As the Y-chromosome does not undergo recombination, the only way for those beneficial mutations to spread is very gradually, outperforming generation after generation until every single human is a direct descendant.
On the other hand.... it does seem that the genetical evidence is a bit more murky and questionable than popular sources claim.
- Retric 4y agoThere’s zero actual genetic evidence the lineage talked about in the article started with him or even that he had it. As to estimates, going from 4 sons to ~40,000,000 people in ~30 generations is going to take a lot more than slight bias. The original estimate was clearly including both male and female dependents then removing duplicates. But, like so often happens people keep reporting vaguely inaccurate versions of the same idea so it mutates. This genetic group is simply close enough to the old story that it seems to vaguely fit.
- im3w1l 4y agoOh I forgot to mention a pretty important factor: That he probably sired a bunch of bastard sons.
- Retric 4y agoHe could have had 400 sons rather than 4 and it wouldn’t have changed things that much. Again, nobody is actually tracking his children when they make these models.