Results of divergence date estimates from individual genes showed that the oldest dates for all nodes were inferred from the wg gene and the youngest dates for all nodes were inferred from the 18S gene with r8s (Table 2).
The new archaeological results seem compatible with the younger date adduced by the geneticists.
Yet a number of researchers argued that the bone's shape suggested a younger date, and that it might have been deposited much later than the volcanic layer.
The European polecat likely diverged from the steppe polecat 1.5 million years ago based on IRBP, though cytochrome b transversions indicate a younger date of 430,000 years.
This makes a 450 BCE or even younger date unlikely but not impossible.
The results of the BEAST analyses did not show a clear bias of particular genes for older or younger date estimates (Table 3).
As the combination of Yule with RLC was very strongly preferred to Birth-death + RLC by the marginal likelihood tests, the anomalously young date from the latter combination could be discounted in this case.
For example, an anomalously young date (~5.0 Ma) was estimated for the Xanthorrhoea crown node using RLC with a Birth-death speciation prior from the rpb2 dataset (Table 2, Figure 8).
Some rate-variable methods have included directionally-biased models (e.g. [ 26]), in which case the young date estimates are a result of the assumption of fast early rates, not a test of this hypothesis.
