# Who are the most unrelated people on Earth? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 13, 2014, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209 "2014-02-13T02:21:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/81 "2014-02-19T06:59:22Z")
A recent [(pay-per-view) paper in _Nature_](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v506/n7487/full/nature13025.html) may shed light on both dates of early Amerindians and the mutation rate of the Y-chromosome. [Dienekes’ blog](http://dienekes.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/ancient-clovis-genome-from-montana.html) comments on the paper. (He finds it “remarkable that this ~13 thousand year old genome now exists while the genomes of modern native Americans that can be had for a fraction of the cost and technical difficulty do not.”) A blog comment quotes from the paper > [@](#): > > we leveraged the date of Anzick-1 to estimate a divergence time between haplogroups Q-L54\*(xM3) and Q-M3, two of the major founding Y-chromosome lineages of the Americas, of approximately 16,900 years ago ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/82 "2014-02-19T14:27:49Z")
> [@buddy431](#): > > The correct answer is [a San person](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_people#Genetics) and anyone else (including non-San Africans who might be geographically quite close). That was my first guess too - that you start in Africa and go as far out as you can. But as Blake has pointed out, Africans are our common ancestors, so they’re actually in the middle. They’re more closely related to everyone than anyone else. They’re on the trunk of the family tree. To find the most unrelated, you have to go up two branches of the tree that are far away. Or to use another simplistic analogy, you are more closely related to your great grandmother than you are to your second cousin whose common ancestor is your great grandmother. So the candidates for least-related would be, say, Australian aborigines and native Americans. ---
**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:** [February 19, 2014, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/83 "2014-02-19T14:34:31Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > That was my first guess too - that you start in Africa and go as far out as you can. But as Blake has pointed out, Africans are our common ancestors, so they’re actually in the middle. They’re more closely related to everyone than anyone else. They’re on the trunk of the family tree. To find the most unrelated, you have to go up two branches of the tree that are far away. Or to use another simplistic analogy, you are more closely related to your great grandmother than you are to your second cousin whose common ancestor is your great grandmother. So the candidates for least-related would be, say, Australian aborigines and native Americans. No, not really. Non-Africans descend from a small group of Africans (presumably somewhere in East Africa) and are most closely related to that small group (and their descendants) than they are to other Africans groups and their descendants. IOW, at the base of our species tree is “all Africans, about 200K years ago”, but at the base of the tree for those of us who are non-Africans is “a small group of Africans about 60K years ago”. But that is still a bit simplistic and ignores much interbreeding not only within our own species, but also with other species (or populations, if you prefer). ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/84 "2014-02-19T15:24:33Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > No, not really. Non-Africans descend from a small group of Africans (presumably somewhere in East Africa) and are most closely related to that small group (and their descendants) than they are to other Africans groups and their descendants. That’s what I meant. > [@](#): > > IOW, at the base of our species tree is “all Africans, about 200K years ago”, but at the base of the tree for those of us who are non-Africans is “a small group of Africans about 60K years ago”. But that is still a bit simplistic and ignores much interbreeding not only within our own species, but also with other species (or populations, if you prefer). Yes, the question is fraught with danger. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/85 "2014-02-19T15:34:24Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > That’s what I meant. You said the opposite. > [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > That was my first guess too - that you start in Africa and go as far out as you can. But as Blake has pointed out, Africans are our common ancestors, so they’re actually in the middle. They’re more closely related to everyone than anyone else. They’re on the trunk of the family tree. To find the most unrelated, you have to go up two branches of the tree that are far away. Or to use another simplistic analogy, you are more closely related to your great grandmother than you are to your second cousin whose common ancestor is your great grandmother. So the candidates for least-related would be, say, Australian aborigines and native Americans. I don’t think you understand how this works. The San aren’t on the trunk, they’re at the tip of first branch. And for that matter there isn’t any “trunk,” it’s all branches at different levels. The San are equally distantly related to everyone at the tips of all other branches - who are more closely related to anyone else than they are to San. (This is ignoring any admixture of the San with Bantu later on.) This [phylogenetic tree](http://picturestack.com/856/720/0b3Picture2IJU.png) may make the situation clearer. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/86 "2014-02-19T16:11:11Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > You said the opposite. I don’t think I did. > [@](#): > > I don’t think you understand how this works. The San aren’t on the trunk, they’re at the tip of first branch. And for that matter there isn’t any “trunk,” it’s all branches at different levels. Never mind. I knew using a family tree analogy was simplistic. I should have known someone would object. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/87 "2014-02-19T16:25:37Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > IOW, at the base of our species tree is “all Africans, about 200K years ago”, but at the base of the tree for those of us who are non-Africans is “a small group of Africans about 60K years ago”. But that is still a bit simplistic and ignores much interbreeding not only within our own species, but also with other species (or populations, if you prefer). I’ve underlined the key point. Note that the phylogenetic chart Colibri just linked to is _for mt-DNA only_. Even clading charts based on autosomal data will be misleading since they cannot depict the multi-dimensionality that arises from having a plurality (2) of parents. A better answer to OP’s question is shown in the clustering diagram in the paper I linked to upthread. I wish someone had quoted that _since it’s obvious many in the thread have me set to Ignore_. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/88 "2014-02-19T16:43:24Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > I don’t think I did. > [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > So the candidates for least-related would be, say, Australian aborigines and native Americans. This is what you said, which if not exactly the opposite is definitely wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/89 "2014-02-19T16:46:32Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > I wish someone had quoted that _since it’s obvious many in the thread have me set to Ignore_. :smack: You said the same to me in a pm. It’s just a message board. Sometimes people skim or misunderstand or express themselves badly or convey the opposite of what they intend or get things badly wrong. Just… move on. It’s not that important. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/90 "2014-02-19T17:00:44Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > You said the same to me in a pm. It’s just a message board. Sometimes people skim or misunderstand or express themselves badly or convey the opposite of what they intend or get things badly wrong. Just… move on. It’s not that important. 😕 😕 I’m not overly concerned that I’m ignored. I’m just trying to help fight ignorance. Your responding personally (not to mention violating the presumed confidentiality of PMs) _rather than endorsing the correct solution to OP’s question_ which I’ve provided, is an example of the problem, not its solution. ---
**Author:** ![superImposed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@superImposed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/superImposed)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/91 "2014-02-19T17:07:34Z")
[Interactive map of human genetic history](http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0214/14022014-interactive-map-human-genetic-history) Knock yourself out 😃 One of the more interestinig tidbits is that the map confirms [Kalash people](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalash_people) claim - curently, in Pakistan - that they are of Greek origin. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/92 "2014-02-19T17:07:46Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > 😕 😕 I’m not overly concerned that I’m ignored. I’m just trying to help fight ignorance. Your responding personally (not to mention violating the presumed confidentiality of PMs) _rather than endorsing the correct solution to OP’s question_ which I’ve provided, is an example of the problem, not its solution. I apologize; I hadn’t realized there was a presumed confidentiality. I thought they were private in the neutral sense of “not public” rather than more specificaly “secret.” I can’t speak to the genetics issues. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/93 "2014-02-19T17:11:03Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > This is a bizarre post. In what way are “African Negroes” a group, other than geographically and in a really old-fashioned racist view of the world? The Bantu migrations. They came out of West Africa in the last ~3000 years. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/94 "2014-02-19T17:14:22Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > A better answer to OP’s question is shown in the clustering diagram in the paper I linked to upthread. I wish someone had quoted that _since it’s obvious many in the thread have me set to Ignore_. :smack: Even free registration for that paper seems to require accepting that they send you email notices, which I wasn’t willing to do (although I could probably access the article through other means). Considering degree of admixture is perhaps a more nuanced way to look at it, but how exactly are you defining degree of relatedness? If you consider both time of lineage separation and the degree of isolation from admixture with other populations, then the probable answer is the Andamese Islanders. As another link indicated, even the San show admixture with non-African populations. Another possibility is some Pygmy groups, which diverged about as long ago as San. However, gene flow with adjacent groups has probably been mostly one way, with female Pygmies but not males entering Bantu populations and little if any Bantu mixture into Pygmy populations. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/95 "2014-02-19T17:14:57Z")
But many sub-Saharan Africans are not Bantu, and they used to ALL be called Negroes. The Bantu are indubitably a group, but there are many other groups within “Black Africans” or “African Negroes” or equivalent terms. It’s only a unified whole from a certain Western perspective that’s no longer current in academic or scientific circles. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/96 "2014-02-19T17:20:16Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > I’m quite familiar with the idea that some old sites have been submerged by postglacial sea level rise. Note that Adovasio’s research is focused on the Meadowcroft site, which as mentioned dates to about 16,000 years ago, not to 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, which is your claim. (I’ve been in touch with Adovasio with respect to an exhibition I’m working on with a section on the earliest colonization of the Americas.) I made no such claim, _the cites made that claim_. I was just quoting the figures from the cites. My first cite made the claim “Giant sloths were eaten by a population living in Uruguay 30,000 years ago, suggesting humans arrived in the Americas far earlier than previously thought, according to a new study.” Here’s the actual article: [http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1774/20132211](http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1774/20132211) So, 30000 years ago is the claim of: Richard A. Fariña, P. Sebastián Tambusso, Luciano Varela, Ada Czerwonogora, Mariana Di Giacomo, Marcos Musso, Roberto Bracco and Andrés Gascue, not me. > **[After the Ice](https://books.google.com/books?id=NVygmardAA4C&pg=PA231&lpg=PA231&dq=Dillehay%2Bfound%2Bcharcoal%2Bscatters&source=bl&ots=aK2a_g-oJk&sig=-af2SCBLHZOIJASsJZnp0cdzHzE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6-UEU5HaA-rs2QWX4oDQCQ&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Dillehay%20found%20charcoal%20scatters&f=false)** > > 20,000 B.C., the peak of the last ice age--the atmosphere is heavy with dust, deserts, and glaciers span vast regions, and people, if they survive at all, exist in small, mobile groups, facing the threat of extinction.But these people live on the... And from the Smithsonian article, : _“Stanford and Bradley say evidence for the Solutreans’ presence in America includes stone artifacts gathered by archaeologists at several sites on the eastern shore of Chesapeake Bay, all producing dates more than 20,000 years old. Most of the dates were derived from organic material found with the artifacts. The exception was a mastodon tusk with attached bone and teeth netted by a fisherman in 1974, along with a laurel leaf-shaped stone knife. Stanford found the tusk to be 22,760 years old. Among other things, the Solutrean hypothesis provides context not only for the Clovis people, but also for North America’s pre-Clovis sites.”_ So, whether or not there are disputes here, we have published degreed professionals making \*claims \*for 20-30K years in peer reviewed scientific journals. Maybe THEIR claims are disputed, but it’s their claims, not my claims. I have not done a single dig since college, I make no claims. My last paper published was a survey of littoral organisms, hardly anything in this genre. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/97 "2014-02-19T17:21:36Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Your responding personally (not to mention violating the presumed confidentiality of PMs) _rather than endorsing the correct solution to OP’s question_ which I’ve provided, is an example of the problem, not its solution. > [@Dr.Drake](#): > > I apologize; I hadn’t realized there was a presumed confidentiality. I thought they were private in the neutral sense of “not public” rather than more specificaly “secret.” [Moderating] There’s no rule against disclosing the contents of PMs, although it’s probably better not to reveal them without permission. **septimus** , I’ll note that your remark about “I suppose people have me on ignore” was unnecessarily contentious for this forum. In any case, let’s drop the personal dispute. Colibri General Questions Moderator ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/98 "2014-02-19T17:23:30Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I didn’t see any reference to human migration to the Americas in that cite. > Nor in that cite. > . Come on, if you would\* read\*, you can see those are cites about how much the sea level has risen in the last 10-20000 years. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/99 "2014-02-19T17:31:54Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Perhaps as much as 50000 years, almost certainly 20000. > [@DrDeth](#): > > So, whether or not there are disputes here, we have published degreed professionals making \*claims \*for 20-30K years in peer reviewed scientific journals. Maybe THEIR claims are disputed, but it’s their claims, not my claims. I have not done a single dig since college, I make no claims. My last paper published was a survey of littoral organisms, hardly anything in this genre. Your statement of “almost certainly 20000” is a claim by you that such a figure is generally accepted. As I said, there is no scientific consensus that dates that old are valid. If you are going to make such claims, you should be clearer that they are at best very uncertain. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2014, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209/100 "2014-02-19T17:36:03Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Come on, if you would\* read\*, you can see those are cites about how much the sea level has risen in the last 10-20000 years. :rolleyes: So? When sea level was lowest, glaciation was at its maximum, potentially blocking routes into the Americas beyond Beringia. The time of lowest sea levels does not necessarily correspond to when migration was most feasible. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-are-the-most-unrelated-people-on-earth/681209.md?page=6)