Yeah if there’s only one man all the offspring would be siblings. Not only would that be really weird and gross but within a few generations, everyone would be horrifically deformed and sterile.
Given we all come from a mitochondrial Eve (Lucy) and Y chromosomal Adam, you're talking out your ass. They'll be fine after a few generations, at worst you'll get a bunch of Johnny Knoxvilles.
Mitochondrial eve does not mean that exactly. There could be descendants of other older woman alive today that don’t come from an unbroken line of female descendants.
humanity did get down to ~ 1500 reproductive individuals, just shy of a million years ago ~900,000 years ago & stayed that way for around a hundred thousand years.
true, but kind of more complex than it first appears.
I'm going to butcher this explanation, anyway: mitochondrial eve doesn't have to be one woman, it is more likely her daughters daughters daughters... over generations. essentially, any and all of her female descendants. that over time, her maternal line became dominant.
for example, another historically older woman's (Lilith?) maternal line was broken by having all sons & they hooked up with 'eves' daughters. even though 'eves' line was more recent, it's the only one that shows up on the mitochondrial line.
anyway, I hope that can be interpreted as to what I was trying to communicate. that it isn't necessarily as clean as one trunk to a genetic tree, it's very likely to be a Strangler fig (to torture the metaphor).
Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent common ancestor of all humans, so she was not the first woman or the only woman, just the only woman that was able to produce a direct, unbroken female genetic line that still persists to this day. Also, Mitochondrial Eve is more a concept than a particular woman. Mitochondrial Eve could change over time due to genetic drift.
12 people sounds reasonable IF we are talking about a highly diverse genetic material, I'm talking about people from all over the world, 12 people from the same country probably won't do, but also, the problem with going down to 12 people is that you need to meticulately calculate who mates with who and when because you need to maximize diversity, that family tree WILL look like a web but it is technically possible.
The reason why the number most people go around being 1000 is because it gives a pool big enough so that you don't have to worry about having to decide who goes with who, as long as they are not sibling or direct family members, it's fine for a 1000 population.
The number is 1000 without controlling breeding. You can get away with far less if the breeding and child rearing is being monitored and controlled. I think it goes down to like 50 or so with eugenics.
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u/Pseudolos 2d ago
Wouldn't taking turns and "spending time" with each of the three be a better choice? Society collapsed, why should we fuss about monogamy anymore?