Hello, cousin...

[Maia]

70,000 to 80,000 years ago, there were only 2,000 of us! The human race almost became extinct. :eye-poppiThat's what Dr. Spencer Wells (http://bigthink.com/ideas/1296) has to say on the subject. Wow, just wow... thinking about the cultural, social, and ethical implications of this idea. It means we're all cousins. :) We were an itty bitty little family.

[dropzone]

And now I feel awkward for having once been attracted to a woman named Maia. (small :eek:) She'd be your mom's age.

I once thought a second cousin was hot, but she, without my prompting and based on the testimony of others, some years later was elected Queen Bitch of the Universe. Trust me: you are far nicer.

[autumn1971]

Still one-thousand times less incestuous than most creation myths.

[Maia]

And now I feel awkward for having once been attracted to a woman named Maia. (small :eek:) She'd be your mom's age.

I once thought a second cousin was hot, but she, without my prompting and based on the testimony of others, some years later was elected Queen Bitch of the Universe. Trust me: you are far nicer.

Thanks. :) (I wonder what the exact process is for being elected Queen Bitch of the Universe...) Anyway, Dr. Wells has a great analogy in the transcript of the video: 2,000 years ago, we all could have fit into a small concert hall. Every last person on the planet. And now look at us! Maybe we overdid it a tad... I do see some logistical problems when it comes to reincarnation. ;)

[Jimbo07]

70,000 to 80,000 years ago, there were only 2,000 of us! The human race almost became extinct. :eye-poppiThat's what Dr. Spencer Wells (http://bigthink.com/ideas/1296) has to say on the subject. Wow, just wow... thinking about the cultural, social, and ethical implications of this idea. It means we're all cousins. :) We were an itty bitty little family.

Yeah, but then, you see, Battlestar Galactica came along and taught them all and helped them to flourish, so that thousands of years later we're now able to build Sony Cylons...

... or sommat

:D

[Lucian]

Thanks. :) (I wonder what the exact process is for being elected Queen Bitch of the Universe...) Anyway, Dr. Wells has a great analogy in the transcript of the video: 2,000 years ago, we all could have fit into a small concert hall. Every last person on the planet. And now look at us! Maybe we overdid it a tad... I do see some logistical problems when it comes to reincarnation. ;)

All I can say is that the election was rigged, and I demand a recount.

[dropzone]

the nice part of bailing on a thread until tomorrow because my reply is not complete is that, by now, most Merkins have done it, too. One reason Americans have no idea what time it is? The TV networks' schedule.

Note that I am studiously ignoring that Maia is either in, or close to, my time zone. It can wait.

[rjh01]

And all of us have a few common ancestors. Most of us share other ancestors.

[A.A. Alfie]

Still one-thousand times less incestuous than most creation myths.

Um, but how and where did the 2000 come from? :confused:



I once heard or read that we were all derived from nine (?) original females. Our facial features are all based around the commonalities within these nine.

Happy to be wrong - just sumptin I heard.
:)

[shadron]

Um, but how and where did the 2000 come from? :confused:

Africa. Which is where we were when he afore-stated winnowing occurred, though not where the event that caused he problem was, Lake Toba. Soon thereafter, some of us left.

I once heard or read that we were all derived from nine (?) original females. Our facial features are all based around the commonalities within these nine.

Happy to be wrong - just sumptin I heard.
:)Sounds like the "The Seven Daughters of Eve", by Bryan Sykes. It gets worse than that - you can read about Sykes' Eve here: mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam.

I like Welles in this video:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CAkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ted.com%2Ftalks%2Fspencer_wel ls_is_building_a_family_tree_for_all_humanity.html&ei=bRhYS_-ZEI6sNqbcpN8E&usg=AFQjCNEsXgA8yg3m7OnLYUiZ4pWtvGlCww&sig2=oFdgiE0zZ9Bh6hHM0MMlXA

[whatthebutlersaw]

Would this be about the same era as the one including Mitochondrial Eve's lifetime?

[shadron]

Would this be about the same era as the one including Mitochondrial Eve's lifetime?

Yup. Eve lived just before the migration started. Every human alive today is descended from her through their exclusively female line (as well as lots of other lines). She could well have lived just a few generations before the Big Botleneck.

[learner]

Thanks. :) (I wonder what the exact process is for being elected Queen Bitch of the Universe...) Anyway, Dr. Wells has a great analogy in the transcript of the video: 2,000 years ago, we all could have fit into a small concert hall. Every last person on the planet. And now look at us! Maybe we overdid it a tad... I do see some logistical problems when it comes to reincarnation. ;)

I cant play the vid but did he really say "2000 years ago we could all have fit into a small concert hall"? :crowded:

[Soapy Sam]

I take it this is Toba? (I can't get the OP link to work).

There's certainly evidence for massive deforestation in India following the eruption, but I find the numbers hard to understand. If there was global dieback, what are the chances of these people ever meeting? If only a single breeding group survived, where is the equivalent effect in other mammals? By that time, humas were widely dispersed.
It doesn't hang together.

[Brian-M]

Yup. Eve lived just before the migration started. Every human alive today is descended from her through their exclusively female line (as well as lots of other lines). She could well have lived just a few generations before the Big Botleneck.


But wouldn't Mitochondrial Eve's mother also be a Mitochondrial Eve, and her mother before that... and so on? With a recursive regression of Mitochondrial Eves to choose from, how do you decide which Mitochondrial Eve is the Mitochondrial Eve? :confused:

[UndercoverElephant]

70,000 to 80,000 years ago, there were only 2,000 of us! The human race almost became extinct. :eye-poppiThat's what Dr. Spencer Wells (http://bigthink.com/ideas/1296) has to say on the subject. Wow, just wow... thinking about the cultural, social, and ethical implications of this idea. It means we're all cousins. :) We were an itty bitty little family.

That theory is now seriously questioned. It was once thought that the super-eruption at Toba wiped out all but 2000 humans but the evidence does not stack up. It was a big eruption alright, but the effects were not widespread enough to nearly wipe out humanity. There has not been an eruption like that since, but compared to the really big mass-extinction-causing super-eruptions, it was a baby.

The mitochondrial "DNA clock" theory is also in trouble, since it is now known that recombination in mitochondrial DNA can and does happen in humans. We nearly always inherit our mtDNA from our mothers but nearly always isn't enough for the clock to be reliable.

[Dats]

But wouldn't Mitochondrial Eve's mother also be a Mitochondrial Eve, and her mother before that... and so on? With a recursive regression of Mitochondrial Eves to choose from, how do you decide which Mitochondrial Eve is the Mitochondrial Eve? :confused:

Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent common ancestor through the female lineage so her mother would not be the most recent.

[Cainkane1]

I saw the science channel and I thought they said we all descended from between 35000 and 70000 people. Humans almost became extinct after a volcanic explosion and the survivors made their living scavenging along the coasts.

[UndercoverElephant]

I saw the science channel and I thought they said we all descended from between 35000 and 70000 people. Humans almost became extinct after a volcanic explosion and the survivors made their living scavenging along the coasts.

Those humans had already been living on the African coasts for maybe 50,000 years before Toba went off. It wasn't really "scavenging". They just became coastal/aquatic specialists, which eventually contributed to the migration. If you are a coastal specialist then there are only two directions you can go in: back to where you came from or forwards along the coast, whereever it leads. And apart from a short-cut across India, it led to Australia.

[SonOfLaertes]

Those humans had already been living on the African coasts for maybe 50,000 years before Toba went off. It wasn't really "scavenging". They just became coastal/aquatic specialists, which eventually contributed to the migration. If you are a coastal specialist then there are only two directions you can go in: back to where you came from or forwards along the coast, whereever it leads. And apart from a short-cut across India, it led to Australia.

Which leads to an interesting thought-experiment, IMO. If humans weren't quite as intelligent at that time, and had to rely a little less on their intelligence to out-compete other animals of the day, perhaps a branch of humanity would have spent more time in the aquatic part of the coastal zone, and speciated to a fully aquatic primate much like the cetacean's ancestors did, while their cousins continued up the coast to further develop their tool-making skills.

I know it's a little off-kilter, but when I have read about this group of ancestors before I've always wondered what such a species would look like, how it it's phenotype would have evolved, etc.

[UndercoverElephant]

Which leads to an interesting thought-experiment, IMO. If humans weren't quite as intelligent at that time, and had to rely a little less on their intelligence to out-compete other animals of the day, perhaps a branch of humanity would have spent more time in the aquatic part of the coastal zone, and speciated to a fully aquatic primate much like the cetacean's ancestors did, while their cousins continued up the coast to further develop their tool-making skills.

I know it's a little off-kilter, but when I have read about this group of ancestors before I've always wondered what such a species would look like, how it it's phenotype would have evolved, etc.

There's actually two different theories here. One of them is Elaine Morgan's "aquatic ape hypothesis" which is a claim about how and why the hominids split from the great apes. It refers to a much older period in human evolution than we are talking about in this thread. The "coastal specialist" theory we are talking about at this point involves early modern humans i.e. people who were biologically almost indistinguishable from ourselves. Their coastal habit was more cultural than genetic, I think. Although this is a dangerous topic to get into....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blombos_Cave

As for what a fully aquatic primate might look like...maybe a bit like a sea otter? :D

[PixyMisa]

I cant play the vid but did he really say "2000 years ago we could all have fit into a small concert hall"? :crowded:
The estimates I've seen for that period are generally around 150 million. So that would have to be a very large small concert hall...

[shadron]

But wouldn't Mitochondrial Eve's mother also be a Mitochondrial Eve, and her mother before that... and so on? With a recursive regression of Mitochondrial Eves to choose from, how do you decide which Mitochondrial Eve is the Mitochondrial Eve? :confused:

THE mitochondrial Eve is the latest such person. Yes, all of Eve's female line of ancestors are also Eve's, but it is specifically defined as the latest such, the MRCA (most recent common matrilineal ancestor).

BTW, I made an error above. mEve is estimated to have lived 200,000 years ago, while YcAdam lived 60,000-90,000 years ago.

[shadron]

I take it this is Toba? (I can't get the OP link to work).

There's certainly evidence for massive deforestation in India following the eruption, but I find the numbers hard to understand. If there was global dieback, what are the chances of these people ever meeting? If only a single breeding group survived, where is the equivalent effect in other mammals? By that time, humas were widely dispersed.
It doesn't hang together.

Lake Toba supervolcano is one thing that happened in that time frame; the other is that it was during the height of an ice age, which dried Africa out. The Sahara was much larger than today and the livable area was much smaller. Some tribes of H. sapiens may have been driven to the ocean shores, as mentioned by Undercover Elephant.

[Madalch]

Africa. Which is where we were when he afore-stated winnowing occurred, though not where the event that caused he problem was, Lake Toba. Soon thereafter, some of us left.

Sounds like the "The Seven Daughters of Eve", by Bryan Sykes.

I just read that last month. Quite interesting, but the bits of fiction at the end about how these women may have lived was just annoying.

[Maia]

The estimates I've seen for that period are generally around 150 million. So that would have to be a very large small concert hall...

Well, I don't know! Here's exactly what Spencer Wells said:


Probably the coolest thing to come out of the genetic results is how small the human population probably was. If you go back to around 70 to 80,000 years ago, we were very nearly extinct, probably the total number of people living in the world at that time and again we were still all living in Africa could have fit into a small symphony hall, around 2000 people, maybe even less and so we nearly went extinct and this was probably due to climate shifts that were occurring around that time. We were in the midst of the last ice age, things really started to get bad between 70 and 80,000 years ago. There was a massive volcanic eruption in Sumatra that is Mt. Toba that erupted around 74,000 years ago. The combination of these factors probably drove the human population very close to extinction and we came back from that and we figured out a way to survive these horrible climatic conditions and that probably primed the pump if you will to allow us to go out and explore the rest of the world and actually make proper forays into the part of Asia, off into Europe, South East Asia, Australia and ultimately into the Americas between 15 and 20,000 years ago.

So the evidence is that we started to leave between 50 and 60,000 years ago following a coastal route along the south coast of Asia, beach combing our way along, living on, you know, marine resources, shellfish, probably doing a little bit of fish trapping. We rapidly made it down to South East Asia to Australia by around 50,000 years ago when humans show up in the fossil record there. There was a later migration between 45 and 50,000 years ago according to our data that came via an inland route, cross the Sahara at a point when the Sahara was actually a very nice place to live. Every 20,000 years or so due to fluctuations, the way the earth precesses in its orbit, the way it rotates and this causes shifts in the way the monsoon rains fall in Africa. Every 20,000 years or so the Sahara’s actually a pretty nice place and it was an extension of the grasslands of East Africa around 50,000 years ago and this allowed people to slowly move up into northern Africa, out into the middle east and that led them on their way to the rest of the world. So it’s really kind of these grand sweeping Paleolithic migratory routes that we’re following but also very specific details, I mean all the way up to the present day nearly, historical events.

We published a paper about a month ago in the American Journal of Human Genetics showing that the Christian population of Lebanon is carrying genetic markers that tie them to the crusaders from Western Europe who came over only about 800, 900 years ago and so these are events that we knew about from the historical record, hadn’t seen a genetic trail, prior to this because we didn’t have enough samples but now we’re seeing it, you know, as we increase the sample size; everything from the very earliest days of our species up to very recent events.


Anyway, Wells has some very interesting things to say, no doubt about it.

[Darth Rotor]

2,000 years ago, we all could have fit into a small concert hall. Every last person on the planet. And now look at us! Maybe we overdid it a tad...
It was all that screwing. Not sure that can be overdone ... :eek:

But did you mean 20,000 years ago? 70,000 years ago? I think that was the nitpick about 150 million in a concert hall. :)

DR

[Correa Neto]

Yes, even if the figure is not exact or even close to correct it is very interesting to realize we're all pretty much the same.

Its even more interesting when you change the refference point, expanding the perspective and checking how close we are to other species. We can say "hello cousin" to an ape... And even to a toad!

[Maia]

It was all that screwing. Not sure that can be overdone ... :eek:

But did you mean 20,000 years ago? 70,000 years ago? I think that was the nitpick about 150 million in a concert hall. :)

DR

Oh. Sorry about that. (Chases after missing zero) I'm still sick with the flu. A frog is a more distant cousin, though. It might not be possible to borrow money based on that connection.

[PixyMisa]

Get well soon!

I found this interesting table (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldhis.html) of historical population estimates, but it "only" goes back to 10,000BC.

[TimCallahan]

I don't know what the mechanism for the near extnction of our species was. However, the basic reasoning behind the near extingction theory is, if I recall correctly, that, since the earliest fully modern human skull, found near the Omo river in east Africa, dates to 180,000 years ago, we our species is at least that old, possibly a bit older, say about 200,000 years old. Given known mutation rates, we, as a species, should be a lot more genetically diverse than we actually are. Hence the liklihood of a near extinction event that winnowed the gene pool.

I would say that the limited degree of genetic diversity in the human species has strong implications when it comes to the subject of racial differences. I don't know if teaching this in schools would reduce the level of racism or not, but it's worth a try.

[Maia]

I don't know what the mechanism for the near extnction of our species was. However, the basic reasoning behind the near extingction theory is, if I recall correctly, that, since the earliest fully modern human skull, found near the Omo river in east Africa, dates to 180,000 years ago, we our species is at least that old, possibly a bit older, say about 200,000 years old. Given known mutation rates, we, as a species, should be a lot more genetically diverse than we actually are. Hence the liklihood of a near extinction event that winnowed the gene pool.

I would say that the limited degree of genetic diversity in the human species has strong implications when it comes to the subject of racial differences. I don't know if teaching this in schools would reduce the level of racism or not, but it's worth a try.

It would be so cool as a memorable way to teach that part of history. :) That's one thing about living in Minnesota (no diversity at all! We were all one big recessive gene!) and then moving to the South, and then also spending a lot of time studying Leon Litwack's work. The social category of "race" is based on what is seen and on visual judgments that are made. People have been placed into these social and cultural categories here for hundreds of years based on whether they appear to be "light enough" or "dark enough", not on some elaborate genetic analysis done before somebody decided whether or not you were going to get to ride the white or colored railroad car in 1919. A perceived "white" or "black" appearance does not correspond in any reliable way to differing amounts of genetic material contributed by ancestors from different geographical locations (Africa, northern Europe, etc.) So in practical terms, race is not a genetic category at all (whatever that would even mean), but one formed by human perceptions. I'm not completely sure what the relationship of the "perception classification" of race has to do with limited genetic diversity, but it would be interesting to see what others have said about it.

[Beerina]

Yeah, but then, you see, Battlestar Galactica came along and taught them all and helped them to flourish, so that thousands of years later we're now able to build Sony Cylons...

... or sommat

:D

BSG's influence is crap. It's the monoliths that did it, and that was like 3 million years earlier. :mad: