Wars and clan structure may explain a strange biological event 7,000 years ago, Stanford researchers findGenetic data suggest there was a collapse in male, but not female, genetic diversity starting 7,000 years ago. The reason may be wars between clans structured around male ancestry.BY NATHAN COLLINS MAY 30, 2018
https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2018/05/30/war-clan-structubiological-event/Starting about 7,000 years ago, something weird seems to have happened to men: Over the next two millennia, recent studies suggest, their genetic diversity – specifically, the diversity of their Y chromosomes – collapsed. So extreme was that collapse that it was as if there were only one man left to mate for every 17 women.
Anthropologists and biologists were perplexed, but Stanford researchers now believe they’ve found a simple – if revealing – explanation. The collapse, they argue, was the result of generations of war between patrilineal clans, whose membership is determined by male ancestors.
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