"Stone Age Sex Surprise" Topic

Scientists are puzzling over a new discovery regarding Stone Age sex: It seems that for every 17 women who reproduced at the time, just one man did the same.

The findings are based on an analysis of the DNA of 450 people from geographically diverse locations. Researchers compared Y-chromosome DNA, which is inherited only from our male forbears, with mitochondrial DNA, which comes from women, Pacific Standard reports.

Such analysis can show experts our numbers of male and female ancestors, and the mystery here is why these ancient numbers are so out of whack…

link

Better than Stone Age Surprise Sex – that's awkward.

I thought that was Quest for Fire

Only the Alpha male got to have sex? Happens in other animals too

Maybe the other 16 cavemen were ogling cavegirls dressed up in saber-tooth tigersuits.

"16 out of every 17 cavemen were gay"

Interesting.

I know that with some animals, the only male that mates with the females is the leader of the pack. Juvenile males are tolerated then driven away as they reach maturity.

I wouldn't have thought such instinctual behaviour would apply to humans, though.

Yes, I think I would look on this as a way of suggesting group size and dominant male harems rather than anything else.

Implications for stone age army lists?

thats why they discovered that ancient d20 the other day.

Actually the period covered by the study is during the age of farming, not nomadic hunter gather.

And thus was invented, "the oral sex".

There's a reason why raids to obtain women were "invented". And you move far away with your acquisitions….

It should be noted that the methodology of this study is very dodgy.

dead before they reached mating age perhaps? learning to hunt probably had quite a steep learning curve

"16 out of every 17 cavemen were gay" is one of many good interpretaions of the data.

Another is that 16 our of 17 male lineages were obliterated through feuds, clan warfare, and general mayhem and mishap. If all of the Rubble boys kill all of the Flintstone boys, then Fred's Y-chromosome dna ceases to be passed down along through the males. But Wilma and Pebbles mitochondrial power of The Force continues on.

Strong family ties perhaps with male groupings ensuring security?

This 'discovery' is more likely a statistical artefact; y-chromosone dna is highly unstable, while mitochondrial dna is extremely stable, so that a multitude of lineages is likely to survive for far longer, while y-chromosones fade from the actual genetic record, leaving an illusion of relatively few stable male lineages…Likewise, anthropological data just doesn't support the idea of large harems.
The illusion of a limited number of male 'genetic founders' keeps cropping up, however, undoutedly because the fantasy of large harems appeals to quite a few men.

Probably a very high mortality rate for young virile males

@ TW

Interesting post. Thanks.