8,000 Years Ago, 17 Women Reproduced for Every One Man

Pacific Standard ^ | March 17, 2015, updated June 14, 2017 | Francie Diep

[SunkenCiv]

An analysis of modern DNA uncovers a rough dating scene after the advent of agriculture.

Once upon a time, 4,000 to 8,000 years after humanity invented agriculture, something very strange happened to human reproduction. Across the globe, for every 17 women who were reproducing, passing on genes that are still around today—only one man did the same...

Another member of the research team, a biological anthropologist, hypothesizes that somehow, only a few men accumulated lots of wealth and power, leaving nothing for others. These men could then pass their wealth on to their sons, perpetuating this pattern of elitist reproductive success. Then, as more thousands of years passed, the numbers of men reproducing, compared to women, rose again...

The team uncovered this dip-and-rise in the male-to-female reproductive ratio by looking at DNA from more than 450 volunteers from seven world regions. Geneticists analyzed two parts of the DNA, Y-chromosome DNA and mitochondrial DNA. These don't make up a large portion of a person's genetics, but they're special because people inherit Y-chromosome DNA exclusively from their male ancestors and mitochondrial DNA exclusively from their female ancestors. By analyzing diversity in these parts, scientists are able to deduce the numbers of female and male ancestors a population has. It's always more female.

So much for what our DNA can tell us. This study, published last week in the journal Genome Research, can't directly account for why the dip occurred...

Nature is a harsh taskmaster, but so, it seems, is human culture. Although the popular notion is that farming and settlement cushioned people against "survival of the fittest," this study shows that's not true. Something cultural happened 8,000 years ago that's marked us even today.

[Jolla]

trace their lineage back to Charlemagne.

Ex wife taught at a french private school, once a year the kids would bring their lineage and yes, about 1/3 of them went back to Charlemagne

[SunkenCiv]

I wouldn’t be surprised. :^)

It’s also a good guess that war widows (after various conflicts with nomadic raiders) would wind up getting taken into the household of, say, a chief, responsible for the fatherless kids and widows.

[BiteYourSelf]

😂

[SES1066]

So why am I thinking that propinquity also plays here?

Something like “While the hunter is away, the farmer comes in to play!”

[Jewbacca]

They didn’t. The ones who reproduced enslaved the other men, who did the work.

To the victor go the spoils.

[ThanhPhero]

Harems in societies where the top guys monopolized the womenfolk and warfare that killed off much of the population of young men before they could reproduce.

[Deaf Smith]

"Work the fields boy"

Much like the movie Quest for Fire.

[SteveH]

so...

domestication -> agriculture -> fiefdoms -> wars -> kings/harems-slaves

(-> bronze trade?)

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23631462-700-the-real-roots-of-early-city-states-may-rip-up-the-textbooks/

[outpostinmass2]

Are women really happier today? 2/3rds of them are on antidepressants.

[telescope115]

The women were not picking them? I thought when cave men went a-court in’
they took a big club with them.

[telescope115]

The survival of the fittest…..

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Thanks for the link to that fascinating article on The New Scientist. I never really thought about “the state” as an invention of man before and what life was like before the state was invented. The two books cited in the article sound very interesting.

This sentence really struck me: “But the vast majority of people had no contact with states as late as the end of the 15th century – Europe’s middle ages.” Maybe 11,000 to 12,000 years of post stone-age mankind and the state still hadn’t touched many peoples’ lives by 1500 AD, only 600 years ago. Now we cannot escape the strangling, suffocating beast.

Against the Grain: A deep history of the earliest states
James C. Scott
Yale University Press

Affluence without Abundance: The disappearing world of the Bushmen
James Suzman
Bloomsbury
This article appeared in print under the headline “Unearthing power”

[SunkenCiv]

Is it even possible? Yes, it is.

[freeandfreezing]

once a year the kids would bring their lineage and yes, about 1/3 of them went back to Charlemagne

That is the kind of situation where self reported data may be unreliable. Better to put Charlemagne in the lineage than "some traveling peasant who spent the night".

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Nope.

Human females pick their mates even in primitive tribes.

Or perhaps especially in primitive tribes.

The women do the cooking, it is one of those universal things.

Many things can find their way into the stew pot if she did not pick you.

[John S Mosby]

Jeffrey Toobin apparently “Zoomed” to completion, an imbecile at best— and the perv got his job back- so what did he have on the “bosses”.

[SteveH]

> They took chances, they died.

or became eunuchs

[telescope115]

LOL, I guess I read too many BC comic strips back in the day!
Come to think of it now, the women in the comic really WERE the men’s equals!🙂

[John S Mosby]

As JEB! the idiot boy with a Mex wife said: “they are so much more fertile”! Guess so vs. the harridan feminist crayzees in the Leftist establishment. The kind who marched in the Pussy hat protest, wearing shirts that read “not my pussy”. To which normal males thought and/or replied— “don’t worry— you can keep it”.

Thus lowering their reproductive potential by their political choice to be “contrary to Nature”, and thus also the supposedly increasing population of homosexuals calling themselves “married”. And Buttigeig and his “partner” “have twin babies” (please, spare us the utterly boring details from a couple of worthless dried dog doo).

[wintertime]

DNA shows that there was a genetic bottleneck among humans about 70,000 years ago. As a species were very close to extinction.