# Most distantly related people on earth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 26, 2007, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095 "2007-10-26T13:03:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/1 "2007-10-26T13:03:10Z")
All of humanity shares a common ancestor at some point in the past. We’re all related. But what two people, from what ethnic groups, would likely be the most distantly related from each other? I’m assuming some isolated tribes would take the prize, but which ones? Is there any way to be sure of this through DNA analysis? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/2 "2007-10-26T13:48:37Z")
I don’t have time to look up the answer now, but you’ll likely find it among the works of genetics researcher Cavalli-Svorza. Off the top of my head – it’s tempting to guess that the most distantly-related would be between, say, New Guineans and Basques, but I bet you’ll find that two populations within Africa are actually the most distantly related, becasue that’s where most of the really early “splits” took place. However, within a single continent, there may be enough post-split intermingling to result in everyone sharing some common ancestor after all. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/3 "2007-10-26T13:56:19Z")
Australian Aborigines and some tribe in Africa should be up there. ---
**Author:** ![ignis\_glaciesque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@ignis\_glaciesque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ignis_glaciesque)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/4 "2007-10-26T14:00:15Z")
Well, let’s look at the ol’ genetic evidence and see. Certain West African populations (for instance, the Mbuti) and the Australian aborigines, if I understand it correctly. In terms of sheer genetic distance, you don’t get much further apart from that. The split between the populations that eventually branched out and colonized Australia occured about 92,000 +/- 5,000 years ago (when we found human bones datable to that time period in Israel, the oldest found outside of Africa). (this all is taken from “Reconstruction of Human Evolution” [1988] by Cavalli-Sforza et al. — the data may be a bit outdated, and I would personally disagree with the notion that the rate of genetic drift is constant) ---
**Author:** ![ignis\_glaciesque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@ignis\_glaciesque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ignis_glaciesque)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/5 "2007-10-26T14:04:09Z")
[QUOTE=JKellyMap] Off the top of my head – it’s tempting to guess that the most distantly-related would be between, say, New Guineans and Basques… [/QUOTE] Yeah, funny you should mention the Basques. I read articles suggesting they were among the first _H. sapiens sapiens_ to colonize Europe, sometime around 40,000 years ago. When the Indo-European peoples swept in from the middle of nowhere in central Asia, they pretty much absorbed the Basque people and their kin, but we can sort of guess at the extent of the Basque by a number of intriguing place names that might’ve been originally Basque, but were adapted by the Indo-European peoples. Man, I wish I could find that article… ---
**Author:** ![ignis\_glaciesque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@ignis\_glaciesque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ignis_glaciesque)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/6 "2007-10-26T14:07:13Z")
[QUOTE=ignis\_glaciesque] The split between the populations that eventually branched out and colonized Australia… [/QUOTE] By which I meant "the split between **the Africans** and the populations that eventually branched out and colonized **the rest of the world**. [writes on board]I will not post hung-over, I will not post hung-over, I will not post hung-over…[/writes on board] ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/7 "2007-10-26T14:33:25Z")
[QUOTE=ignis\_glaciesque] [writes on board]I will not post hung-over, [/QUOTE] I understood you perfectly. Maybe I need a drink… ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/8 "2007-10-26T14:47:52Z")
Me and Dick Cheney. Robin ---
**Author:** ![ignis\_glaciesque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@ignis\_glaciesque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ignis_glaciesque)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/9 "2007-10-26T15:28:40Z")
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant] I understood you perfectly. Maybe I need a drink… [/QUOTE] What _would_ a carnivorous plant drink, anyways? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/10 "2007-10-26T16:10:14Z")
[QUOTE=JKellyMap] I don’t have time to look up the answer now, but you’ll likely find it among the works of genetics researcher Cavalli-Svorza. [/QUOTE] I have his book right here, but it’s a bit dated. I’m guessing someone like Spencer Wells has much more up-to-date info. But on page 89 of C-S’s book, _Genes, Peoples and Languages_, he has a 2-D map of the genetic distance of 42 scattered populations from throughout the world. The Mbuti are the real outliers, and they are about equally distant from several populations-- Australians, AmerIndians, some Southeast Asians, and Micro/Melanesians. However, that is just averages for populations, and you might find that two people in Africa are the most distantly related since that is where you find the most genetic diversity. Everyone outside of Africa is pretty closely related since they are the result of a relatively small group that left Africa about 50-60k years ago. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/11 "2007-10-26T16:16:55Z")
[QUOTE=ignis\_glaciesque] By which I meant "the split between **the Africans** and the populations that eventually branched out and colonized **the rest of the world**. [writes on board]I will not post hung-over, I will not post hung-over, I will not post hung-over…[/writes on board] [/QUOTE] Actually, that’s not right. At the highest level you can split the world’s populations into 3 groups. All of the non-Africans\* fall into one of those groups, but all three groups also are represented in Africa. That means that of the 3 groups, only one left Africa (about 50 or 60k years ago), but some in that group stayed in Africa. This is reflected in both the Y-chromosome and mt-DNA haplogroup data. \*As I often have to do on this subject, I’m using Africa to mean “sub-Sahara Africa”. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/12 "2007-10-26T16:18:35Z")
The click languages of Africa were originally clumped together simply because they have clicks in them but are now recognized as quite distinct languages. It has been suggested that the earliest human language had clicks and that groups such as the Hadza in Tanzania and the Juǀʼhoan (located near the !Kung speakers) in Botswana split very early in human history. Genetic analysis of mitochondrial DNA shows them to be the farthest apart genetically (in that component). There’s a click language in Australia but it is probably a later creation. Some links: [Hadza language - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadza_language) (Note section 2) [Juǀʼhoan language - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ju/%E2%80%99hoan_language) [Damin - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damin) (As a corollary, if you wish to divide humans into a small number of groups (like 4-7), almost all will be in sub-Sahara Africa. North Africans, Eurasians, American Indians and Polynesians would be one group.) ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/13 "2007-10-26T16:33:01Z")
[QUOTE=MsRobyn] Me and Dick Cheney. Robin [/QUOTE] Well, that’s a cop-out answer. :rolleyes: “_Any_ human being and Dick Cheney” would be tied with you for first. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![ignis\_glaciesque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@ignis\_glaciesque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ignis_glaciesque)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/14 "2007-10-26T16:36:49Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Actually, that’s not right. At the highest level you can split the world’s populations into 3 groups. All of the non-Africans\* fall into one of those groups, but all three groups also are represented in Africa. That means that of the 3 groups, only one left Africa (about 50 or 60k years ago), but some in that group stayed in Africa. This is reflected in both the Y-chromosome and mt-DNA haplogroup data. \*As I often have to do on this subject, I’m using Africa to mean “sub-Sahara Africa”. [/QUOTE] Ah, that makes sense, especially when I re-read the paper and recalled that there was more than just one migration out of Africa. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/15 "2007-10-26T17:02:02Z")
[QUOTE=ignis\_glaciesque] Ah, that makes sense, especially when I re-read the paper and recalled that there was more than just one migration out of Africa. [/QUOTE] I’m not 100% sure, but I believe the population in Israel from which that older skeleton came was an earlier group which died out without leaving any descendants. It could also be that the group represented by all non-Africans did, in fact, completely vacate Africa only to have some of their members return to Africa shortly after leaving. Of course that would be pretty much the same as if some had stayed in Africa in the first place. Still, the two most distantly related humans are probably (and I emphasize probably) on person from Y-chromosome Haplogroup Group A or B (the folks who all stayed in Africa) and group CR (the group which has both African and non-African members). OR, possibly just one person from group A and one person from group B. BTW, the Bushmen have a high number of group A individuals, and the so-called Pygmies (of which the Mbuti are one group) have a high number of group B individuals. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/16 "2007-10-26T18:00:41Z")
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp] “_Any_ human being and Dick Cheney” would be tied with you for first. 😛 [/QUOTE] [Except for Barack Obama.](http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071016/pl_nm/usa_politics_cheney_obama_dc) Robin ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/17 "2007-10-26T18:12:08Z")
[QUOTE=MsRobyn] [Except for Barack Obama.](http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071016/pl_nm/usa_politics_cheney_obama_dc) Robin [/QUOTE] And Mary or Elizabeth Cheney (his two daughters). ---
**Author:** ![ignis\_glaciesque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@ignis\_glaciesque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ignis_glaciesque)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/18 "2007-10-26T18:13:28Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] I’m not 100% sure, but I believe the population in Israel from which that older skeleton came was an earlier group which died out without leaving any descendants. [/QUOTE] I never read anything more detailed than basically ‘there were a bunch of skeletons in this cave in Qafzeh, Israel, and they were anatomically-modern usses, and they were buried with a lot of red ochre.’ But what you say may be so; I just don’t know anything about it. [QUOTE=John Mace] It could also be that the group represented by all non-Africans did, in fact, completely vacate Africa only to have some of their members return to Africa shortly after leaving. Of course that would be pretty much the same as if some had stayed in Africa in the first place. [/QUOTE] True. We wouldn’t be able to tell from the evidence we have now, unless we have some serious fossil or material evidence, and even then, it’d be rather shaky. How _could_ we tell, hypothetically, if a population left Africa and some of its members backtracked? [QUOTE=John Mace] Still, the two most distantly related humans are probably (and I emphasize probably) on person from Y-chromosome Haplogroup Group A or B (the folks who all stayed in Africa) and group CR (the group which has both African and non-African members). OR, possibly just one person from group A and one person from group B. BTW, the Bushmen have a high number of group A individuals, and the so-called Pygmies (of which the Mbuti are one group) have a high number of group B individuals. [/QUOTE] _strokes chin_ Veddy interestink… ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2007, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/19 "2007-10-26T18:25:25Z")
[QUOTE=ignis\_glaciesque] I never read anything more detailed than basically ‘there were a bunch of skeletons in this cave in Qafzeh, Israel, and they were anatomically-modern usses, and they were buried with a lot of red ochre.’ But what you say may be so; I just don’t know anything about it. [/quote] Like I said, I’m not 100% sure. But… it’s widely accepted that non-Africans today are all descended from a group that left Africa no later than 60k years ago. It only stand to reason that if there were modern humans outside Africa 90k years ago (and I suspect there were Modern humans leaving Africa several times before 60k years ago), then they left no descendants behind. > [@](#): > > True. We wouldn’t be able to tell from the evidence we have now, unless we have some serious fossil or material evidence, and even then, it’d be rather shaky. How _could_ we tell, hypothetically, if a population left Africa and some of its members backtracked? You couldn’t. You can only construct probability trees and say which is the more likely. I mean, it’s possible (though highly unlikely) that all modern humans evolved outside Africa and everyone in groups A and B migrated to Africa, while some of group CR migrated there and some stayed out. But we choose to take the more parsimonious explanation, which is the first one. That’s the way this stuff works-- you set up trees of descent and see which one is the most likely. At the level we’re talking about here, we can be very confident that we’ve chosen the correct tree. As you add more and more splittings, it’s gets a bit more difficult to be certain. That’s one reason that Spencer Wells is working on getting samples from 100,000 indigenous people throughout the world to better refine the data. I think we are currently working from a sample size of about 10x smaller than that. ---
**Author:** ![ignis\_glaciesque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@ignis\_glaciesque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ignis_glaciesque)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2007, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095/20 "2007-10-27T03:59:09Z")
Ahh. I do believe I’ve learned something today. I am much obliged. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/most-distantly-related-people-on-earth/424095.md?page=2)