<<First, contrary to your title, it is not mitochondria, it is the
Y-Chromosome. The Mitochondrial DNA is passed only from the Mother.
Second, your conclusion is wrong. What you assert would not be the case if
there was, before this man, a direct line going back into the past.>>
Thanks for the correction on the chromosome thing.
I based my conclusion re: most hominids being excluded as ancestors on the
experts cited in the Times article, who say this new evidence deals a
tremendous blow to the "multi-regional" hypothesis.
While your cone diagram looks good, I don't think it deals with the data,
which limits the range of possible ancestors to a discrete and insular area.
So far, we don't have any evidence of "coning" in the region where "Adam and
Eve" cavorted.
This is also supported by Davis and Kenyon in "Of Pandas and People," in their
section on mitochondrial Eve (p. 112), wherein they state the thesis "would
eliminate Neanderthal as a candidate for ancestry to European peoples...It
would eliminate the vast majority of Homo erectus populations across Europe
and Asia as ancestral to man, leaving open only the possibility that some tiny
Homo erectus population in Africa gave rise to modern Homo sapiens, if the two
are related at all."
Jim