Archaeologica.org

What's interesting now is that some mathematicians using a supercomputer are speculating that the entire human race had to have come from one pair living from 5,000 to 7,000 years ago (Steve Olson, Mapping of Human History).

"Furthermore, Olson and his colleagues have found that if you go back a little farther--about 5,000 to 7,000 years--and probably on the low side of that range--to find somebody who could count everyone alive today as his descendant." Roots of Human Family Tree are Shallow--By Matt Crenson, National AP Writer

Patrilineal and matrilineal ancestry
The most recent common patrilineal ancestor of all living male humans, and the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of all living female humans have been established by researchers using tests of the same kinds of DNA as for two individuals. Notions such as Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam yield common ancestors that are more ancient than for all living humans. (Hartwell 2004:539) Mitochondrial Eve is estimated to have lived about 150,000 years ago. Y-chromosomal Adam is estimated to have lived between 60,000 and 90,000 years ago. The MRCA of humans alive today necessarily lived more recently than either.

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Time estimates
Depending on the survival of isolated lineages without admixture from Modern migrations and taking into account long-isolated peoples, such as historical tribes in central Africa, Australia and remote islands in the South Pacific, the human MRCA is generally assumed to have lived in the Paleolithic period.

However, Rohde, Olson, and Chang (2004), using a non-genetic model, estimated that the MRCA of all living humans may have lived within historical times (3rd millennium BC to 1st millennium AD). Rhode (2005) refined the simulation with parameters from estimated historical human migrations and of population densities. For conservative parameters, he pushes back the date for the MRCA to the 6th millennium BC (p. 20), but still concludes with a "surprisingly recent" estimate of a MRCA living in the second or first millennium BC (p. 27). An explanation of this result is that, while humanity's MRCA was indeed a Paleolithic individual up to Early Modern times, the European explorers of the 16th and 17th centuries would have fathered enough offspring so that some "mainland" ancestry by today pervades even remote habitats. The possibility remains, however, that a single isolated population with no recent "mainland" admixture persists somewhere, which would immediately push back the date of humanity's MRCA by many millennia. While simulations help estimate probabilities, the question can only be resolved authoritatively by genetically testing every living human individual.

Other models reported in Rohde, Olson, and Chang (2004) suggest that the MRCA of Western Europeans lived as recently as AD 1000. The same article provides surprisingly recent estimates for the identical ancestors point, the most recent time when each person then living was either an ancestor of all the persons alive today or an ancestor of none of them. The estimates for this are similarly uncertain, but date to considerably earlier than the MRCA, according to Rohde (2005) roughly to between 15,000 and 5,000 years ago.

All this seemed like a promising start when I picked the book up. I looked forward to some in-depth accounts of the histories of recent and past human migrations. I have to say I was disappointed, but this may be because I came to the book with a particular set of expectations. Although there is quite a lot about migrations and origins (the origins of modern humans, the genetic history of the Jews, the genetics of western China, the spread of the Indo-Europeans, language phylogenies, the genetic structure of the modern French), the main focus of the book seemed to be elsewhere. The account of the peopling of the Americas (which in any case relied heavily on a combination of Greenberg’s - still disputed - linguistic analyses and the archaeology) and the genetics of the French, for example, were used mainly as a stick to beat racists over the head.

Indeed, what seemed like an unnecessary proportion of the book was devoted to combating the confusions of the lunatic fringe (perhaps, like creationists, they are just more abundant in the USA?).

WASHINGTON - A Christian-themed movie about a football coach's faith in God is finding an audience in Congress, not so much for its inspirational message, but for the PG rating it received.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and other lawmakers are demanding explanations after hearing complaints that the movie Facing the Giants was rated PG instead of G due to religious content.

Minimalist wrote:Frankly, I think children should be kept away from religious themed movies because these can do a lot of damage to young minds.

Frankly, I think children should be kept away from religious themed movies because these can do a lot of damage to young minds. Just look what it has done to these so-called 'law-makers

So arch what about the dodos ?

It seems there are such things as "Christian Films" and a Congressional Committee is upset because one of them got a PG rating

Children should be children ,playing and learning ,not spending time in sunday schools being fed fear of eternal damnation,burning in hell and other supersttious fairy tales

ReneDescartes wrote:I have a6 year old son .He never was baptised,never exposed to religion teachers ,preachers or the likes.He is perfectly happy.When he is adult he will be able to make his own choices , Children should be children ,playing and learning ,not spending time in sunday schools being fed fear of eternal damnation,burning in hell and other supersttious fairy tales .So arch what about the dodos ?

and secular movies with sex and violence don't????