TY - JOUR T1 - An Accurate Genetic Clock, <em>GENETICS</em> JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/026286 SP - 026286 AU - David H. Hamilton Y1 - 2015/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/09/08/026286.abstract N2 - Our method for “Time to most recent common ancestor” TMRCA of genetic trees for the first time deals with natural selection by apriori mathematics and not as a random factor. Bioprocesses such as “kin selection” generate a few overrepresented “singular lineages” while almost all other lineages terminate. This non-uniform branching gives greatly exaggerated TMRCA with current methods. Thus we introduce an inhomogenous stochastic process which will detect singular lineages by asymmetries, whose “reduction” then gives true TMRCA. This gives a new phylogenetic method for computing mutation rates, with results similar to “pedigree” (meiosis) data. Despite these low rates, reduction implies younger TMRCA, with smaller errors. We establish accuracy by a comparison across a wide range of time, indeed this is only y-clock giving consistent results for 500-15,000 ybp. In particular we show that the dominant European Y-haplotypes R1a1a &amp; R1b1a2, expand from c4000BC, not reaching Anatolia before c3800BC. This contradicts previous clocks dating R1b1a2 to either the Neolithic Near East or Paleo-Europe. However our dates match R1a1a &amp; R1b1a2 found in Yamnaya cemetaries of c3300BC by Nielsen et al (2015), Pääbo et al(2015), together proving R1a1a &amp; R1b1a2 originates in the Russian Steppes. ER -