I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.
Posted on 11/05/2005 9:38:10 AM PST by billorites
Giocangga's extraordinary number of descendants, concentrated mainly in north-east China and Mongolia, are thought to be a result of the many wives and concubines his offspring took.
Dr Chris Tyler-Smith, a geneticist working at Britain's Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, made the finding, based on a study of a set of genes on the male Y chromosome.
He told the BBC World Service's Science In Action programme that these genes provided a "genetic surname" of the family to which each man belonged.
"What we did was analyse around 1,000 men from that part of the world," he said.
"We noticed just two types of Y chromosome that were extraordinarily frequent - one of them making up around 3% of our sample.
"When we looked at it more carefully, we found that it was not present in the majority population in that area, the Han. But in the minorities, including the Mongolians, it was present at around 5%."
'Good chance of survival'
Scientists were then able to work out roughly where the special genes came from.
They established the origin was north-east China, around 500 years ago.
More accurate analysis then found that this particular genetic code first appeared just before the Qing dynasty, which came to the fore in 1616 and had conquered China by 1644.
"It was ruled by the Qing imperial nobility, who were a highly privileged elite class, and they had several wives and concubines.
"Because of the privilege, they could have had many children - and those children would have had a good chance of survival."
At the time of Giocangga, the population of China was about 100 million - compared with 1.3 billion today.
This means that the average Chinese man at the time of Giocangga would only have around 20 descendants living today - in marked contrast to Giocangga's 1.5 million men.
"The difference is accounted for by the large number of wives and concubines - and in particular, this practice being linked to the Y chromosome for many generations," Dr Tyler-Smith added.
and you thought little willie clintoon spread it all around!
Holy cannoli. That's a lot of mouths to feed. ;) And it means that this man literally could field an army out of his britches...
Ah. And would this be the famous Won Hung Lo?
I guess that powered rhino horn must work.
I love my cigar, too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.
Geez, thats more than Wilt the Stilt Chamberlain
George Foreman would have named them all- "George."
Damn, I know what his hobby was...
If there were 50 million Chinese males then, some would have died without offspring, or had children but eventually their descendants died out. Say there are 650 million Chinese males today (it may be a little higher because of the one-child rule leading to a surplus of males). Each Chinese male has a Y-chromosome which was carried by an ancestor alive in 1644 (the start of the Ch'ing dynasty), and in nearly all cases that ancestor was Chinese. On average, a Chinese male of 1644 would have 13 descendants today carrying that Y-chromosome, but in fact many would have no such descendants because of families having only daughters, and others would have many more than 13.
Total descendants, including those through female descendants, would on the average be much higher. There are Americans of the 18th century who have thousands of living descendants. It is quite credible that a ruling dynasty would have vastly more descendants because of the imperial harems.
"Once upon a time there were 2 Chinese...now look at how many there are."
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