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Spanks79 t1_j1ydoj3 wrote

In the end we all descend from just a few women (mitochondrial eve)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_Eve

And a handful of men (y-chromosomal Adam)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam

There was a period humans were almost extinct and of those only a few people are responsible for all of our genetic material.

Even so: mitochondrial dna might come from ‘eve’ , some of the other humans or even humanoids (like Neanderthals) might have given us part of their dna by breeding. It’s just mixed into the y- or mitochondrial lines.

Still there are many factors of which I know only a few. Must important would be distance / travel. Micronesian people might share a Europe’s and African forefather, but after they separated ages ago they didn’t breed back in. Same for native Americans or Australian natives.

Still it’s very interesting to see there’s still a lot of things being found out. For instance that denisova man interbred with early humans and Neanderthals and many Asian people have some denisova dna and Europeans/Caucasian have up to 5% Neanderthal dna.

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Additional-Fee1780 t1_j25uhba wrote

Mitochondrial Eve was NOT the only living female at that time. Every other mitochondrial line ended, but they still could have had sons.

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Spanks79 t1_j25uy96 wrote

Yes, as I state in my post other DNA might still be mixed in into the lines. As the egg organelles come from eve, there might be much different dna in the chromosomes.

Same for the male thing.

Actually there’s many humans with Neanderthal and Denisova dna. Interbreeding took place and introduced different dna.

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