[kinoxi]

3. There are areas in mitochondrial DNA (which is made up of 16,568 base pairs) in which slight changes are significantly more common. These are called the hypervariable regions. Most mtDNA studies on humans use what are now called HVR-1 and HVR-2. Specific mutations are passed on to all female descendants, and allow populations to be tracked through time.

Do you disagree with the link in post #7? Especially the part about paternal transference of mitochondrial DNA. It seem to debunk the entire theory if it is not an exclusively female phenomenon.

[Coyoteman]

Do you disagree with the link in post #7? Especially the part about paternal transference of mitochondrial DNA. It seem to debunk the entire theory if it is not an exclusively female phenomenon.

I'm not an expert in the field, but from what I have seen the evidence suggests that this type of transference could be quite rare.

The examples I cited 1) from southern Alaska (On Your Knees Cave) of an individual dated to 10,300 years ago being associated with numerous living individuals of the same haplotype, and 2) from California spanning 5,300 years, suggest that the standard model of mitochondrial descent is dominant. While there may be some cases of paternal transference, the examples I cited where the mtDNA is identical for many thousand years suggests that no such paternal transference occurred in those instances.

This may be in instance where they are still working out some of the fine points, but the overall pattern of mtDNA descent is well established?

But, things are changing quickly so we'll see.