[Northkeep] Genealogists discover royal roots for all

[Marc Carlson]

The problem with these mathematical models is that they tend to ignore 
certain unfestive little realities, like geography, social class, history, 
and so on.   For instance, the model that says that the most common 
ancestory was as recent as the reign of Tutenkhamen ignores the reality that 
the Native American populations - even by the most narrow interpretations - 
had been isolated from the rest of the gene pool for 8,000 years by that 
point.  The Australians even longer.

Genetics, while still a bit dodgy at times, presents a much more realistic 
model of the most recent common ancestor being a man about  59,000 years ago 
(based on Y chromosome mutations), and a woman about 100,000 years ago 
(based on mitochondrial DNA).

Marc/Diarmaid