Genghis Khan's genetic legacy has competition | Hacker News Reader

Genghis Khan's genetic legacy has competition

nature.com

37 pointsbenbreen21 comments

Maybe I am missing something in the article, but how do they identify the "founders" of these Y-chromosome lineages? What distinguishes the founder from their father's Y-chromosome lineage? Are they just trying to attribute the common lineage back to a historically powerful man who likely was involved in its spread and therefore calling them the "founder"?

This is puzzling to me as well. It may be more a familial thing than just one man. Ghenghis Khan was a member of a very powerful tribe and all the men, who were likely very closely related, would have engaged in the same prolific behavior during conquests.

Yes and no.

Genghis Khan actually rose from a modest station in life, unremarkable by that time and place's standards. But you're right that it was a family thing - he had lots and lots of descendants, about half of which were male, and these descendants inherited some of the high status of their father, and therefore also had lots of descendants. And so on over generations, until the status faded.

It was a family thing indeed, but it started with one man, and that man was Temujin, a.k.a. Genghis Khan.

You are correct that the founder's Y chromosome should be the same as his father's - barring tiny mutations.

The "founder" is defined like this:

You notice that a large portion of men in a population share a Y chromosome. The chromos are not exactly identical, due to the natural rate of mutations. You determine the amount of mutations, from the existing population, that would make all those Ys converge on the same chromosome back in time.

Knowing the amount of mutations, and knowing the average natural rate of mutations, you can calculate the time - let's say 1000 years ago. It then follows that 1000 years ago there was a man who had lots of descendants - and this is the "founder".

In the "career" of that chromosome, there's a natural bottleneck right until the "founder's" generation. After that there's a sudden expansion.

For the 850AD lineage, it seems like the formation of the Holy Roman Empire would seem a prime candidate for an "event" in europe that led to the "modern european". Was Charlemagne a profitable pater for his family?

Here's the actual study:

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ejhg20...

"Here we surveyed a total of 5321 Y-chromosomes from 127 Asian populations, including novel Y-SNP and microsatellite data on 461 Central Asian males, to ask whether additional lineage expansions could be identified."

Looks like all the lineages involve Asian males, so a more probable guess would be, say, the ruling family of the Abbasid Caliphate, which reached its greatest extent around 850.

Sounds like you need a powerful man AND a man who fathered many, many, children. A quick search suggests he had 20 kids, not sure whether that's enough to qualify.

I doubt 20 kids would be enough to qualify. Most people of my grand parent's generation had around 20 kids. It used to be the norm.

Keep in mind that mortality prior to reaching one's first birthday was upwards of 50% in most premodern societies, so the key factor here seems to me to be not only fertility, but the ability to wield social capital over multiple generations (employing court physicians, wetnurses, etc) to ensure that all those kids actually live to adulthood. Hence why I find this study so interesting - it's using genetic evidence to map the flows of social power across generations (like with the dynasties of Genghis and the Qing).

20 kids!?,the man is a serial rapist.please listen to the wrath of the khan podcast by Dan Carlin

http://podbay.fm/show/173001861/e/1343775512?autostart=1

Once again, not talking about Genghis, the thread refers to Charlemagne.

Oh, this makes sense. I understand how an emperor or an otherwise important figure would be able to have a huge dynasty while being able to have the offsprings stay alive to keep the bloodline alive.

However, in this exemple (Charlemagne), I doubt it unless he had a lot of bastard children.

In the example of my grandmother, she had up to 20 children (excluding those that didn't even make it to birth), but only 17 of them lived. The poor still had a lot of children, albeit with more issues, so I doubt the social capital would help here.

I have no idea, really. But this in an interesting conversation.

> Most people of my grand parent's generation had around 20 kids.

Do the math...this is clearly false.

Depending on the location it could very well be true.

This is true in my area. Not all over the world, of course.

That depends on how many kids those kids had.

> A quick search suggests he had 20 kids, not sure whether that's enough to qualify.

20 legitimate kids or 20 total kids. I find it hard to believe that he had just 20. I'm sure he had a tremendous number of bastards.

Secondly, his grandson Hulagu Khan, sacked Baghdad and killed the Caliph, taking his harem. He took 100 of the concubines/wives.

http://www.baluch-rugs.com/History/Biographies/Hulagu_Baghda...

"Hulagu now gave orders that the Caliph’s harem should be numbered, and it was found to contain 700 wives and concubines, and 1,200 servants. He thereupon implored that 100 of the females, on whom the sun and moon had never shone, should be handed back to him, and this being granted he selected his relatives."

I'm referring to Charlemange, not Genghis.

One glaring mistake I observed was: "In addition to Genghis Khan and his male descendants, researchers have previously identified the founders of two other highly successful Y-chromosome lineages: one that began in China with Giocangga, a Qinq Dynasty ruler who died in 1582." while Wikipedia says Qing Dynasty did not begin until 1644.

edit: Looks like a commenter addresses it: "Here is part of the abstract of that paper: "We suggest that the lineage was spread by Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) nobility, who were a privileged elite sharing patrilineal descent from Giocangga (died 1582), the grandfather of Manchu leader Nurhaci, and whose documented members formed approximately 0.4% of the minority population by the end of the dynasty." Giocangga died in 1582 and was in Ming Dynasty. He was the ancestor of Qing Dynasty rulers. His lineage was spread by Qing Dynasty nobility. BTW, It is Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) not Qinq Dynasty."

I wonder if it would be possible to use eigenface analysis to produce a 'typical' face borne by men who carry these particular Y chromosomes. That would be interesting indeed.

This could also be done for lineages of women as well, by following mitochondrial DNA.

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