Consider that there is a mitochondrial Eve for all 6.5 Billion of us, living about 150,000 years ago. Doesn't scale of course (6.5 billion / 8 million = 800 :: 150,000 / 2000 = 75), but why would it?
Our most recent common ancestor is statistically supposed to have lived around 3000bce - 1000ce. Now *that's* astounding. :-)
Also, I'm not sure Hammer's comment is correct. The mtDNA Ashkenazi ancestor was the only woman to have left an unbroken mother-to-daughter legacy, but clearly other women contemporary to that mtDNA ancestor have decendants today, who are related by a chain the chain that includes at least one mother-son link. I think.
As in the case with mitochondrial Eve, the most recent common ancestor of all Ashkenazi would have lived much more recently. It is the progeny of Ashkenazi contemporaries of *that* ancestor that went extinct, within the Askenazi line. Unlike the case of the most recent common ancestor of the whole 6.5 billion of us -- in which the lines of all other people living at that time went extinct -- I think that in the Ashkenazi case, contemporaries of the most recent Ashkenazi ancestor may still have living decendants, but these decendants merged into other gene pools too long ago to be considered Ashkenazi.
Correct me if I'm wrong. This is all based on a vague recollection of Dawkins' River Out of Eden
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Our most recent common ancestor is statistically supposed to have lived around 3000bce - 1000ce. Now *that's* astounding. :-)
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As in the case with mitochondrial Eve, the most recent common ancestor of all Ashkenazi would have lived much more recently. It is the progeny of Ashkenazi contemporaries of *that* ancestor that went extinct, within the Askenazi line. Unlike the case of the most recent common ancestor of the whole 6.5 billion of us -- in which the lines of all other people living at that time went extinct -- I think that in the Ashkenazi case, contemporaries of the most recent Ashkenazi ancestor may still have living decendants, but these decendants merged into other gene pools too long ago to be considered Ashkenazi.
Correct me if I'm wrong. This is all based on a vague recollection of Dawkins' River Out of Eden
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