Dwarkesh Patel

First of all, what is going on with this group of archaic Africans 1.5 million years ago?

Where in Africa are they?

And what happens to the portion of them that don't form modern humans?

Do they survive?

And then this includes the Khoisan and whatever other groups.

Yes.

Okay, great.

Okay, so the Neanderthals, first time around 300,000 years ago,

Our ancestors share culture with them.

They share the Middle Estonian technology, but they don't replace the population.

The technology spreads through culture, basically.

And then I understand that if things are transmitted more through women that actually, sorry, let me back up.

I don't understand why the maternal DNA and mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome would be especially privileged as the spreading is happening.

Can you explain that?

But not both.

Right.

I guess I don't understand how the maternal, like, okay.

You know, the group spreads and it gets to the next front and they have kids and some of those kids are,

From the humans that have just entered, the kids will have the maternal DNA, the mitochondrial DNA from the humans.

But from the existing people, they will have the mitochondrial DNA of the archaic humans.