Heirs of Genghis: where are they now?

[Banquo's Ghost]

well again, probably about 83% in Europe descend from Jean-Pierre the peasant too I'd like to see any scientists doing a more serious calculation model than I made above, to see their estimate of how many "distant descendants" the average Medieval man of around 1000 AD would have by now, but I'm sure it can't be far below the values of Ghenghis and Charlemagne. I might as well ask - has anyone seen a study about the very subject? If there have been studies about how many descendants people like Genghis and Charlemagne have, it wouldn't be too off having a similar study for the average male.

There's been a number of genetic studies which trace the dissemination of genetic markers (a good reflection of the actual inheritance from an individual). Ghengis Khan is a prime suspect for a big genetic inheritance pattern:

Y Chromosome evidence


General historical figures (I loathe Wikipedia for serious stuff, but my sources otherwise are books and papers, and at least this article gives references for a change).

Newsy type coverage

Ghengis has a big genetic footprint (at least theoretically) as with other powerful figures because they would have had a much greater chance of breeding children than Jean-Pierre the peasant. These children would have been, in their turn, much more successful in breeding and so the genes traceable to that individual would dominate in a population.

[Subedei]

Interesting statistics around here, respect....didn`t know a lot about these "quantitive theories"....So what you say is "There is a little bit of Genghis in [pretty close to] all of us!"....

[Rodion Romanovich]

Ghengis has a big genetic footprint (at least theoretically) as with other powerful figures because they would have had a much greater chance of breeding children than Jean-Pierre the peasant. These children would have been, in their turn, much more successful in breeding and so the genes traceable to that individual would dominate in a population.

Well, since there are more lower-class than upper class, eventually after a few generations many children of Genghis or similar would be lower-class, and lose that better chance of reproduction. Also, Genghis is a bit of an exception for an otherwise common rule - that upper class people refuse to mix with lower class people. Since the upper class is smaller, if the upper class is fairly constant, the upper class would essentially mostly mix with other upper class and only occasionally (through new rich and through occasional secret love affairs with lower class people) get descendants within the lower classes (plus such secret lovers would surely after 1 generation lose any monetary support they ever had from the upper class partner). Indeed, many European ruling lineages were heavily inbred between Habsburg era and the early 20th century, including for instance the Romanov tsar lineage.

There's been a number of genetic studies which trace the dissemination of genetic markers (a good reflection of the actual inheritance from an individual). Ghengis Khan is a prime suspect for a big genetic inheritance pattern

That's interesting, but a bit strange way of going about the problem IMO. It's an irreversible function, i.e. different persons could have contributed to modern people with the same genes, so if you find a certain gene it's impossible to tell whether it was from Genghis or someone else. However, since the evolution model is well established, it's possible to do the reversal, by using mathematical graph theory you should be able to calculate the number of descendants from a certain person, and using even more complex models be able to tell how large percentage of the DNA they are likely to have contributed to in modern day people etc. Such mathematical studies would also be useful for finding answers to questions such as: "is avoidance of inbreeding with 3rd, 4th or later generation relatives an important element in partner choice behaviors?", "do we seek our opposites or our likes?" and finding out the importance of actually contributing genetically to the next generation compared to letting a brother do it - is there are all any difference noticeable after 10 generations? After 100? Or will the effect oppositely multiply itself over generations? It could also be used to estimate whether behaviors to compete for sex are more important than good survival behaviors (by comparing with chances of genetically dying from bad survival genes compared to chances of genetically dying from bad sexual-competition genes), which would be very useful for analyzing human behavior. If reproduction-competition is more important than being a good survivor, for instance, then it would have huge consequences to what behaviors are most likely in human nature - warlike instincts (common chimp) or peace and love (bonobo)? I'll take some time and formulate a few models, but from what I've heard there have already been various studies of mathematical graph theory related to inheritance and similar.

[Banquo's Ghost]

If reproduction-competition is more important than being a good survivor, for instance, then it would have huge consequences to what behaviors are most likely in human nature - warlike instincts (common chimp) or peace and love (bonobo)? I'll take some time and formulate a few models, but from what I've heard there have already been various studies of mathematical graph theory related to inheritance and similar.

For a good introduction to genetic influences on behaviour read 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins, and anything on the Evolutionary Stable Strategy formulated by Maynard Smith.

[Rodion Romanovich]

For a good introduction to genetic influences on behaviour read 'The Selfish Gene' by Richard Dawkins, and anything on the Evolutionary Stable Strategy formulated by Maynard Smith.

Thanks, I might check it out

[snevets]

Its much easier to trace female inheritance patterns, since mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from the mother and mutates at a predictable rate. A study couldn't be done as easily on a man, y chromosomes are much more finicky.

[IrishArmenian]

I think they are on some British Cell Phone ad.
Really I bet they are everywhere