A to Z Challenge On the Move: G is for Genographic

Several years ago, the National Geographic Society launched an ambitious program to study the DNA of volunteers more deeply than any other DNA study. They went back hundreds of thousands of years, tracing DNA changes that gave a picture of the proto-migrations of the ancestors of these volunteers, including me.

For some reason, earlier this year, they shut the program down.  

But wow -- you wanna talk about migrations?

My DNA reveals, first of all, that I am 2.1% Neanderthal and 1.1% Denisovan.  This led some waggish friend of mine to state that this means I am 3.2% extinct.  Sometimes I feel like it.

It also means my ancestors range from France and Germany to Siberia, where the offshoot Denisovan branch was found in a series of caves, the Denisova Caves.

According to the National Geographic Society's study, the Genographic Project, "Most non-Africans are about 2 percent Neanderthal and slightly less than 2 percent Denisovan."  Proof that Homo Sapiens and these cousins of theirs did interbreed.

These migrations are of my maternal line, since females do not receive the Y chromosome from their fathers; only sons do.  

Our DNA carries genetic markers, records in the DNA of mutations that occurred as new DNA was added to the mixture that is us.

Note to White Supremacists:  You are not as lily-white as you like to think you are.

The first marker in my DNA is referred to as Branch L3, and originated in East Africa around 67,000 years ago.  It is one of two lineages of the first modern humans (homo sapiens) to leave Africa and go north or east.  My folks got in early on the migration thing!

Within L3 marker carriers developed Haplogroup N, one of two groups produced by those L3 ancestors.  That was about 60,000 years ago.  Some ended up in parts of East Asia, others in southern Europe.

Possibly the first family squabble, though a genetic one rather than social, economic, religious, or political in origin, came when Haplogroup R arose out of Haplogroup N, about 55,000 years ago in West Asia. 

These two groups lived and migrated together, and their descendants "dominate the European maternal landscape, making up 75 to 95 percent of the lineages there."

Hi, cousin!

Then, about 25,000 years ago, Haplogroup T arose out of R.  This is the bunch credited with the development of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent, in the Middle East.  These people spread all over, carrying their newly developed agriculture with them. 

Then came T2, about 19,000 years ago in West Asia.  It spread across Anatolia (Turkey and its neighbors) and into Europe.  This group is found in such varied places as Iraq (21% of maternal lineage), Croatia (16%), Greece (11%), Belgium (15%), Denmark (13%), and Switzerland (11%), among others.  My mother has proven Swiss ancestry.

Finally, there's T2b, arising around 10,000 years ago, again in West Asia.  It also went all over Eastern and Western Europe.  It constitutes about 5% of the population of the British Isles, where my ancestors on both sides came from in the 1600s and 1700s.

My recent regional ancestry -- between 5,000 and 10,000 years ago -- is an interesting mix indeed.

I am:

45% Northern European.  That's no surprise, really.

37% Mediterranean.  That is a surprise, but it includes Iberia, and maybe explains my fondness for and facility with the Spanish language.

16% Southwest Asian.  Total surprise!  This includes the Arabian Peninsula, India, Pakistan, Iran, and Tajikistan.  Wow.

2% Northeast Asian.  Another surprise.  This includes Japan, China, and Mongolia.

Well, there I am.  More of a mixture than I would ever have thought.  

I used to be impressed by my ancestors' migrations from Europe (mostly English, possibly Scots and/or Irish, and that little bit of Swiss) and across Canada and the United States.  This totally blows it away!

The Genographic Project came under fire from indigenous peoples as racist, but I don't see it that way.  In fact, it has shown me that there is no such thing as a "pure" lineage, or a "pure" race, as we all carry parts of many different peoples within us.  I like that.  I think it makes us way more interesting.  I think it points up what I hold to be true: there is but one race -- the human race.

It is a real pity that the NGS cancelled the Genographic Project.  I would have loved to know more.