ALL the women in the world were hogged by just a few men until around 10,000 years ago. That, at least, is the latest theory proposed to explain a mystery thrown up by genetic studies.
The history of the sexes is recorded in the Y chromosome, which is passed from father to son, and mitochondrial DNA, which is always inherited from the mother. Recent studies have revealed surprising differences in the patterns of diversity in mitochondrial DNA and in Y chromosomes. One explanation is that the female population boomed about 100,000 years ago – around the time that modern…
