The hypothetical ancestral forms (Protochordata) possessed a notochord, a ventral suctorial mouth and numerous gill-slits, and were presumably descended from the common ancestor of Annelids and Vertebrates.
It would be a great error if we were to ascribe the possession of oblique stripes solely to descent from a common ancestor.
The very close analogy of structure between man and the ape at once suggests that they had a common ancestor.
The FACT of the evolution of man and the apes from a common ancestor is, therefore, outside the range of controversy in science; we are concerned only to retrace the stages of that evolution, and the agencies which controlled it.
In law, sometimes, in a general sense, all persons descended from a common ancestor; all lineal descendants.
Resemblance between different plants or animals, in external shape, in general habit, or in organs, which is not due to descent from a common ancestor, but to similar surrounding circumstances.
If all animals pass through the curious gastrula stage, it must be because they all had a common ancestor of that nature.
I repeat: It is now impossible to oppose evolution on the ground that we have no convincing example of the descent of all the species of a group from a common ancestor.
All impartial zoologists agree to-day that all the vertebrates, from the amphioxus and the fishes to the ape and man, descend from a common ancestor, "the primitive vertebrate.
The same argument seems to demonstrate that the idea of kinship within the clan was prior to the idea of descent from a common ancestor, whether an animal or plant, a god, hero or nicknamed ancestor.
The cultivators of each village believed themselves to be kinsmen descended from a common ancestor, and also to be akin to the god of the village lands from which they drew their sustenance.
The clan was the small body which lived together, and in the patriarchal stage was connected by a tie of kinship held to be derived from a common ancestor.
But it was unnecessary, because impossible, that all should be able to trace their descent from the same common ancestor; and much less from the eponymous ancestor.
Few families in the same gens might not be able to find a common ancestor, but it would not follow that they were not of common descent from some remote ancestor within the gens.
But some investigators, Niebuhr among the number,[316] have denied the existence of any blood relationship between the families in a gens, since they could not show a connection through a common ancestor.
The gens, though a very ancient social organization founded upon kin, does not include all the descendants of a common ancestor.
The group upon which this responsibility falls is twice as large in the Welsh Laws as at Athens, and includes fifth cousins, or the greatgrandchildren of greatgrandchildren of a common ancestor.
Most probably the god of the Uji was first worshipped by the people of the district rather as the spirit of a former ruler, or the patron-god of a ruling family, than as the spirit of a common ancestor.
The rise of the earliest Amniotes, among which must have been the common ancestor of the reptiles, birds, and mammals, is put back towards the close of the paleozoic age by the discovery of these reptile remains.
Reflecting on these facts, and collecting analogous ones, it seemed to me probable that allied species were descended from a common ancestor.
But they consider that all persons belonging to one gotra are descended from a common ancestor, and marriage within the gotra is therefore prohibited.
Marriage is forbidden between persons so closely connected as to have a common ancestor in the third generation.
The rule barring the marriage of sapindas is that two persons cannot marry if they are both as near as fourth in descent from a common ancestor, and the relationship is derived through the father of either party.
Davenport, therefore, says that the English may find a common ancestor thirty-two generations ago; Professor Conklin admits that we need not go further back than Noah to find a common ancestor of all mankind.
How is it possible that we must go back sixty thousand generations for a common ancestor, when thirty-two generations will suffice for the English, and about 200 generations since Noah, for the whole race?
The above list will hopefully provide you with a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "common ancestor" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this group of words.
