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Comment by Danborg | Hacker News Reader

Is anyone alive today that is descended from this tree?

Most likely we are all (all as in everyone on planet Earth) descendents of that family. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-are-all-mo...

Not necessarily from this particular set of people though.

Reich: In Europe where we have the best data currently—although that will change over the coming years—we know a lot about how people have migrated. We know of multiple layers of population replacement over the last 50,000 years.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/03/ancient-...

I wouldn't bet on everyone alive today being descended from them, but at least 90% is pretty likely.

Why? Related to them, sure, but not descended directly from that 'set of people' versus a different branch from common ancestors, i.e. their cousins.

There are about 200 generations between now and then. Your ancestor set needs to only grow by about 10% each generation to include everyone who was alive back then and therefore also them. In a perfectly mixed population your ancestor set grows 100% each generation until it includes everyone. Now humans aren't a perfectly mixed population but you only need a few migrants each century between different societies to reach 10% because in each society it's much closer to 100% (until it includes ~everyone in that society).

I don't think it's quite like that.

Yes, everyone in a region is likely related to ancestors +800 years ago from that region, it's not the same for regions with little migratory exchange.

Probably every Chinese person is a descendant of the 1st Han Emperor, but probably most Europeans are not, though they are probably all descendants of Charlemagne, whereas Chinese citizens are not. Etc.

No. It's very unlikely that the vast majority of people in Africa, Asia, and America are descended from these people. They do almost certainly share a common ancestor, though.

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