[pocksuppet]

The descendants of bronze-age kings are surely more likely to be today's elite politicians than today's homeless people.

[alex0015]

At that time distance from now, we're essentially all related to anyone who reproduced back then.

http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers/CommonAncestors/Nature...

[4gotunameagain]

   > Chang established the basis of this research in a previous publication with an intentionally simplified model that ignored such complexities as geography and migration   

This seems like a very impactful simplification. Especially given the relative limited mobility of peoples up until very recently.

[JohnMakin]

What is your evidence to support that? there is no 1:1 comparison here. The groups that likely survived these collapses were largely nomadic or at the fringes of society, used to sustaining themselves without the support of the existing power structures.