High Frequency Haplotypes are Expected Events, not Historical Figures

Elsa G Guillot, Murray P Cox
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/022160

Cultural transmission of reproductive success states that successful men have more children and pass this greater fecundity to their offspring. Balaresque and colleagues found high frequency haplotypes in a Central Asian Y chromosome dataset, which they attribute to cultural transmission of reproductive success by prominent historical men, including Genghis Khan. Using coalescent simulation, we show that these high frequency haplotypes are expected simply by chance. Hence, an explanation invoking cultural transmission of reproductive success is statistically unnecessary.