DNA Study Traces Ancient Ancestry Of Europeans

CNN.com ^ | 11-10-2000

[blam]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Four out of five men in Europe share a common male ancestor who lived as a hunter on a wild continent some 40,000 years ago, researchers say.

In a study appearing Friday in the journal Science, researchers say an analysis of a pattern found in the Y chromosome taken from 1,007 men from 25 places in Europe shows that about 80 percent of Europeans arose from the Paleolithic people who first migrated to Europe.

[expatpat]

The answer is "Yes". A study of the Y chromosome 'markers' (mutations) showed that most of the world's humans descended from a tribe of bushmen who still live in Africa (the ones who communicate by clicking). The current trabal members have faces quite different from Negroes, looking more like Central Asians and Amerinds.

[Interesting Times]

Ping.

[AZLiberty]

The book The Seven Daughters of Eve reports on a similar analysis using mitochondrial DNA, which are passed only from female to female. The authors use the data to claim that all women in Europe were descended from seven unique female individuals, the "seven daughters of eve". I recommend the first half of the book highly for its scientific content. The second half is a speculative attempt to recreate the daily lives of the seven women.

[tet68]

I think perhaps as far back as Demeter,
whose rich tresses fall as only a goddesses does.

;^)

[Lion in Winter]

woo-woo?????? LOL!!

[martin_fierro]

Other paternal/maternal DNA Genealogy projects:

Oxford Ancestors

The Molecular Genealogy Research Project

Family Tree DNA

[A. Pole]

I wonder if these are the Indo-Europeans. If so, they imposed their language on the indigenous peoples. Perhaps everyone in Europe spoke an early version of Basque prior to that.

Very likely - about 8000 years ago the Indo-European languages started to differentiate and there are some indication that it took place in highlands of Anatolia where agriculture and roots of civilisation took place before the valleys of Mesopotamia and Egypt.

[Unam Sanctam]

What's the current consensus academic thinking on Anatolian agriculturalists versus steppe horsemen as the origins of the Indo-Europeans?

[squarebarb]

My bet is that the 20% were Celts. Does that make sense?Hmm. Would the Celts have had the same Y chromosomes as the rest of the population already in NW Europe?

Basque has no known relatives. Surely some remnant group would have been found by now speaking a related language.

Berber?

Anyway, fascinating.

[wagglebee]

This is the key phrase: "a more advanced people, the Neolithic, migrated to Europe from the Middle East". This is a thinly-veiled liberal attempt to do two things: 1. Dispute the Judeo-Christian tradition of man's origins and 2. To promote the idea that the Europeans (no doubt white, capitalistic, racist, war-mongering homophobes) were far less advanced that the migrants from the Middle East, who I'm sure the liberals think saved the Europeans from starvation and ruin (never mind that until the discovery of oil the Middle Easterners were still living the way they did under the Romans). But I'm sure in their mind these peace-loving Islamics will again save Western civilization as soon as their "elite republican guard" decimates the quagmired Americans or we get "bogged down in another 'brutal' Afghan winter."

[blam]

"The answer is "Yes". A study of the Y chromosome 'markers' (mutations) showed that most of the world's humans descended from a tribe of bushmen who still live in Africa (the ones who communicate by clicking). "

They were also the stars of the hilarious movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy

African Click Language 'Holds Key To Origins Of Earliest Human Speech'

[cyborg]

reading a bit much into it?

[eeriegeno]

Yep, this is all absolutely true and the same scientists, using DNA evidence, proved that OJ is innocent? Nevermind the blood trails, which were not 15000 years old.

[greenwolf]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Four out of five men in Europe share a common male ancestor who lived as a hunter on a wild continent some 40,000 years ago, researchers say.

The guy's name was "Noah", and it was more like 4000 years ago, or so I've heard.

[blam]

"This is the key phrase: "a more advanced people, the Neolithic, migrated to Europe from the Middle East". "

You're confusing the present racial distribution of the Middle East with that of the past. The racial make-up was different thousands of years ago. For example, I suspect the Caananites were Proto-Celtics. Goliath was a big Celtic guy ?

[cyborg]

Probably thinking along religious lines

[blam]

"My bet is that the 20% were Celts. Does that make sense?Hmm. Would the Celts have had the same Y chromosomes as the rest of the population already in NW Europe? "

I'm leaning in that direction also. They would be distantly related to all other Europeans of that time.

[Ciexyz]

Most interesting.

[blam]

"The guy's name was "Noah", and it was more like 4000 years ago, or so I've heard."

IMO, closer to 8,000 years ago. Specifically, 7,600 years ago when the Black Sea flooded. (Noah's Flood/)

[elli1]

Now I see what you were getting at. Interesting question & speculation.