[Crucial]

There is also the process of environmental mutation where changes in the DNA can occur within a relatively short amount of time passes down directly from within ones own family.

I have to ask myself, how much of what one does personally and comes into contact within one’s personal environment shapes the genes of your decendants for generations?

[nopardons]

I fell in love with/became fascinated by genetics, in high school, when we studied Gregor Mendel and his theories. That set me off on a life long study of my family. Besides physical traits, I also have studied several different preference patterns ( ours skip a generation and then show up, continuing the pattern ), so that before my grandchild was born, I did correctly foretell a few things non-physical traits.

Granted, I have the most info on my maternal side, so that is what I use. It worked on my progeny as well. :-)

Since I can go back about 8 generations, on my maternal side, no...environment has had absolutely NOTHING at all to do with it!

As far as physical traits are concerned, that I haven't touched as much; too many different traits to go by, by this time! OTOH...once certain traits show up, yes, I can work backwards and see who got what from generations past.

No, I can't go back 8 millennia; not even 4! But I don't believe that this article's "facts" are true at all! They don't make any sense and some of the "facts" are incorrect, re the whole where people lived thing!

[Alas Babylon!]

It’s all about the babies.

Given one trait over another in a stressful environment, can there be any adaptation that favors, even minutely, survival and successful mating and producing of offspring?

If so, that person’s genes have a more likely chance on surviving down the line.

Add up enough of these over time and you will have a distinct population of traits.