So... these 30 or so women “founded and settled” the island, rather than the men who tagged along behind them.
Amazing stuff, mitochondrial DNA. It apparently turns scientists into Womyn’s Studies professors.
You’re right. The 30 founder women is easily seen in a group of 30 families. Have 30 mothers and 2-3 daughters + husbands and sons for a group of 200. Then you realize some women had only sons or daughters but only grandsons and the number doubles to 500.
A single ship of 500 people could have done it, but they’d have had more than 30 women.