Almost all British people have British ancestry dating from Neolithic times.

I obviously descend from an unbroken chain of mothers but how many times would this line meet another unbroken chain of mothers going back from another person?

The history teacher in the village of Cheddar was found to have the same mitochondrial DNA as Cheddar Man. How likely is it that he does not descend from Cheddar Man's family?

I obviously descend from an unbroken chain of mothers but how many times would this line meet another unbroken chain of mothers going back from another person?

Over the course of thousands of years, if the two people are from the same continent it's practically certain.

Why? If a woman has a daughter, and this daughter has a daughter, how long does this normally continue before only sons are born? I suspect that most chains of this type are not that long, certainly not 30 000 years long.

Why? If a woman has a daughter, and this daughter has a daughter, how long does this normally continue before only sons are born? I suspect that most chains of this type are not that long, certainly not 30 000 years long.

That makes no sense. Every daughter has a mother.

Why? If a woman has a daughter, and this daughter has a daughter, how long does this normally continue before only sons are born? I suspect that most chains of this type are not that long, certainly not 30 000 years long.

I'm struggling to find the connection between this and the title? How does finding two people with a certain genetic lineage suggest that almost everyone in Britain has neolithic British ancestry?[/QUOTE

The two people were in the same area that the skeleton was found. You obviously don't want to see the far-reaching implications of this.

You have forgotten to factor in that in the past people had multiple children.

I'm struggling to find the connection between this and the title? How does finding two people with a certain genetic lineage suggest that almost everyone in Britain has neolithic British ancestry?

But not every mother has a daughter.

Yes because clearly women were unable to have more than one daughter. This is dumb, even by your standards.

But not every mother has a daughter.

what far reaching implications? Cheddar man will have millions of ancestors and will be only one of thousands of ancestors of the two people who had some shared DNA- the fact they happened to be in the area means nothing in itself. Given the number of ancestors it would be statistically highly likely that some of them would be in the area- you don't of course know if thier line of ancestors never moved or have been round the world and then come back- what exactly do you think it proves ?

I think you've missed the original point here. If you take two living people, both have a chain of ancestors going back as far as you care to look - there would be no point where this chain would be broken.

There are issues with Syke's sequencing of the Cheddar Man. It is premature to draw any conclusions from it.

1) The research was never presented in a peer-reviewed journal and subject to criticism or review

2) DNA Testing has significantly advanced since 1997, and the original sequencing was not subject to the standards that are considered acceptable today.

3) Many notable sources have indicated that there is reasonable doubt that the DNA was contaminated.

Most unbroken mother to daughter lines are eventually going to die out. My question is, what percentage of them last thousands of years?

It strongly suggests that Cheddar man or someone in his close family has a great many descendants all over Britain and that if you could find the DNA of skeletons all over Britain you would find descendants of these skeletons all over Britain.

Irrelevant - some have multiple daughters and given 9000 years there'll be enough cross links between families to form an unbroken chain, even if some lines down have dead ends. By your argument, mitochondrial eve couldn't exist.


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Contaminated. Well, there's a loophole for you.