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> it seems that homo sapiens had one ancestor, as Bible says Not really; we're apparently all descended from this chap, but he's not the only living male human
by archangel_one 14y ago
> it seems that homo sapiens had one ancestor, as Bible says
Not really; we're apparently all descended from this chap, but he's not the only living male human at the time. He himself had a father, just like we all do. And while there is a female equivalent in "mitochondrial Eve", they didn't live at the same time. So it doesn't really bear much resemblance to the book of Genesis.
- ithkuil 14y agoExactly, he might had been lucky and survive some plague, or killed every body else in a small group that was lucky to survive a plague. Or he simply might have had a large harem and so a his descendance was more numerous that other people and thus more likely to survive a subsequent struggle or plague. It's also possible that this event was repeated often enough and all that our statistical methods of DNA matching can see is a single father, but it could perhaps have been a whole dynasty and/or brothers sharing mating privileges.