Not to get into a debate, but he went out of his way to state very strongly that mtDNA Eve wasn’t and couldn’t be older than the oldest modern human. Maybe there is more context to what he said and that was not quoted, but the quote, as given, is unambiguous in its claim.
Anyway, the point being that the quote, as written, is not correct. Your polar bear analogy is a good example.
The fuzziness of the species boundary may make the issue moot, but if you pretend there’s a crisp distinction between sapiens and pre-sapiens, and that they were interbreeding, it seems conceivable that, if only by chance, the common uterine ancestor was pre-sapiens. Odds of that would increase, perhaps, if the society were matrilocal.
From another article linked to by a previously posted URL, I find:
This surprised me, and might suggest that Mitochondrial Eve was pre-sapiens indeed! If sapiens, passing through the 2000-individual bottleneck would make the 200,000 year ago date unlikely. Instead, might this small band of sapiens have expanded, mating with indigenous matrilocal pre-sapiens women in other parts of Africa?
Probably unlikely. And probably refuted by the details of these recent papers which, unfortunately, seem to all be pay-per-view.
The mitochondrial genome is only a tiny part of the total genome. These genes mostly control intracellular processes. The genes that control the morphological characters that differentiate brown bears and polar bears are in the nuclear genome. And the nuclear genome can undergo changes completely independently of the mitochondrial genome.
The original population of polar bears (if we designate some specific point when we consider them polar bears instead of brown bears) would have had a variety of mtDNA variants. If only one of the variants present at that time left descendant lineages that exist in the present day, then Polar Bear Eve was a polar bear. If more than one variant present then left still-existing descendants, then these diverged before the population became polar bears, so that Polar Bear Eve would have been a brown bear.
I don’t read it that way. It seems to me that he is more commenting on what he thinks actually occurred in this instance, rather than as a statement of general principles.
Right.
This little post finally made it all make sense to me. Thanks, Sage Rat.
Sorry if I was unclear… I wasn’t referring to the mitochondrial genome itself, but to the portion of the nuclear genome that gets passed down from mother to daughter (and yes, I know that it’s not always the same portion in every generation, but in any given generation it’s still half the genome).
The mtDNA genome is passed vertically from mother to daughter, without interchange between lineages, so these lineages remain separate. The differences that accumulate in the mtDNA lineages are entirely due to the different mutations (often “neutral,” with no actual effect) that take place in each lineage.
In contrast, each chromosome is inherited separately, and there is extensive crossing over of genetic material between each chromosome in a pair (one from each parent) during meiosis (except the X). So there is extensive horizontal exchange of genetic material in each generation. Therefore the nuclear genome represents a scrambling of genetic material potentially including all of your ancestors, male or female, in a particular generation. Twenty generations back, your mtDNA is descended only one individual, but your nuclear genome is descended from up to a million individuals (ignoring pedigree collapse and random loss of particular markers).
The mutations or other changes that resulted in the differences between polar bears and brown bears could easily had spread throughout the ancestral polar bear population through selection (or genetic drift when the population was small) while the mtDNA lineages remained distinct.
Very minor nit: mtDNA transmission from male sperm does happen, perhaps nearly 2% in sheeps, though much less in humans.
I have been chasing my wifes pedigree chart through Charlemagne and on to Gaius Julius Ceaser, wife Aurelia Cotta or Aurelia (May 21, 120 BC – July 31, 54 BC so the lines do still exist
As I think was pointed out earlier in thread, Gaius Julius Caesar didn’t have any children with Aurelia. He had one legitimate child, a daughter, who married Pompey the Great and died in childbirth. The child also didn’t survive.
In terms of illegiitimate children, Cleopatra’s son Ptolemy XV (Caesarion) was reputed to be Caesar’s, but that’s still disputed. Nevertheless, he was killed at the age of 17 on the order of Augustus and didn’t have any children. So, it’s unlikely that your wife is descended from Gaius Julius Caesar. It’s possible that she’s gotten hold of a spurious genealogy.
Wow. Here it’s a big deal if you’re a Daughter of the [American] Revolution, w/ lineage at least till 1776.
Your wife is way beyond a Daughter of the [Carolingian] Revolution.
My genealogy documentation peters out three generations.
When you trace my male line, you eventually get to a farmer in the mid 19th century US Midwest (think “Little House on the Prairie” life). Nobody seems to know where his parents were from - for all we know he could have been a foundling.
Mark Anthony was supposedly related to Julius Caesar, and his ancestors include a few Roman emperors, and monarchs of various kingdoms. I’m sure if somebody had the time to do a lot of clicking on wikipedia, they could find some people who have descent from Mark Anthony…although it would be very difficult to be 100% sure of parentage through each generation 
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Antony’s mother was Ceaser’s cousin. It is one of the main reasons that Antony joined Ceasers staff in Gaul. Antonys children by Cleopatra married into Libiyan royalty. Its very possible that Gaddaffi was descended from him. Or the dude who set himself on fire in Syria.
if ceasers blood died out it would have died out with agustus romulus in 480 ad
I am directly decended from Julius Caesar… My family have been doing research into genealogy and have found that Julius is my 92nd Great Grandfather 
Did you read the prior research that shows that all of Julius Caesar’s biological descendents died out?
As mentioned, Julius Caesar’s direct line seems to have been quickly extinguished, but there are certainly descendants of the original Caesar cognomen alive today. For example, Marc Antony’s mother was Julia Caesonia, a (relatively distant) cousin of Julius Caesar, and many people living today can claim descent from Mark Antony, as shown below.
“Can claim” is not the same as “Can prove” and any proof would startle the many experts who seem convinced that no Descent from Antiquity has ever been demonstrated. The line I show below is just one of many alleged lines, but in each case the steps through the “Dark Ages” don’t seem to have satisfactory proof. Nevertheless, even though any specific line may not meet a proof standard, it can be asserted with confidence that there are some unprovable but valid lines from Mark Antony to most of the present crowned heads of Europe! Most of the following links were copied from a few relatively reliable genealogical sites.
Louis is the ancestor of many living European nobles, including King Juan Carlos and (through his mother) William Heir to the throne of Britain. For example:
He’s probably talking about Caesars zombie who has risen not just once but twice.
My cousin (a professor) did a family genealogy, thus presenting a document that indicated we’re related to Julius Caesar through our German heritage? It seems that he (Julius) was adapted? If this is so, I would be (of course) very proud to be mixed with the same bloodline as he. - Johnny Luckett
He adapted to lots of things, but he was the scion of an old family who claimed decent from Venus, so it’s unlikely that he was adopted.