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Y-Line Migration – I1a Haplogroup Line (Male)
Your
Y-chromosome results identify you as a member of haplogroup
I.
The
genetic markers that define your ancestral history reach back roughly 60,000
years to the first common marker of all non-African men, M168, and follow
your lineage to present day, ending with M170, the defining marker of haplogroup I.
If
you look at the map highlighting your ancestors' route, you will see that
members of haplogroup I carry the following
Y-chromosome markers:
M168
> M89 > M170
Today,
members of this haplogroup can be found
throughout southeastern and central Europe.
Relatively high concentrations exist in two distinct regions of Europe: among Scandinavian populations and those in
the northwestern Balkans. Some studies suggest that up to 40 to 50
percent of the men in Nordic populations of Scandinavia
belong to haplogroup I. A similar frequency is
found around the Dinaric Alps, a mountain chain in southern Europe
spanning areas of Slovenia,
Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro,
and Albania.
Men carrying marker M170 can also be found in relatively high frequencies
in some parts of southern France
and Normandy.
What's
a haplogroup, and why do geneticists
concentrate on the Y-chromosome in their search for markers? For that
matter, what's a marker?
Each
of us carries DNA that is a combination of genes passed from both our
mother and father, giving us traits that range from eye color and height to
athleticism and disease susceptibility. One exception is the
Y-chromosome, which is passed directly from father to son, unchanged,
from generation to generation.
Unchanged,
that is unless a mutation—a random, naturally occurring, usually harmless
change—occurs. The mutation, known as a marker, acts as a beacon; it can
be mapped through generations because it will be passed down from the man
in whom it occurred to his sons, their sons, and every male in his family
for thousands of years.
In
some instances there may be more than one mutational event that defines a
particular branch on the tree. This is the case for your haplogroup I, since this branch can be defined by two
markers, either M170 or P19. What this means is that either of these
markers can be used to determine your particular haplogroup,
since every individual who has one of these markers also has the other.
Therefore, either marker can be used as a genetic signpost leading us
back to the origin of your group, guiding our understanding of what was
happening at that early time.
When
geneticists identify such a marker, they try to figure out when it first
occurred, and in which geographic region of the world. Each marker is
essentially the beginning of a new lineage on the family tree of the human
race. Tracking the lineages provides a picture of how small tribes of
modern humans in Africa tens of
thousands of years ago diversified and spread to populate the world.
A haplogroup is defined by a series of markers that are
shared by other men who carry the same random mutations. The markers
trace the path your ancestors took as they moved out of Africa.
It's difficult to know how many men worldwide belong to any particular haplogroup, or even how many haplogroups
there are, because scientists simply don't have enough data yet.
One
of the goals of the five-year Genographic
Project is to build a large enough database of anthropological genetic
data to answer some of these questions. To achieve this, project team
members are traveling to all corners of the world to collect more than
100,000 DNA samples from indigenous populations. In addition, we
encourage you to contribute your anonymous results to the project
database, helping our geneticists reveal more of the answers to our
ancient past.
Keep
checking these pages; as more information is received, more may be
learned about your own genetic history.
Your
Ancestral Journey: What We Know Now
M168:
Your Earliest Ancestor
Fast
Facts
Time
of Emergence: Roughly 50,000 years ago
Place
of Origin: Africa
Climate:
Temporary retreat of Ice Age; Africa
moves from drought to warmer temperatures and moister conditions
Estimated
Number of Homo sapiens: Approximately 10,000
Tools
and Skills: Stone tools; earliest evidence of art and advanced conceptual
skills
Skeletal
and archaeological evidence suggest that anatomically modern humans
evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago, and began moving out of Africa to colonize the rest of the world around
60,000 years ago.
The
man who gave rise to the first genetic marker in your lineage probably
lived in northeast Africa in the region of the Rift Valley, perhaps in
present-day Ethiopia, Kenya, or Tanzania, some 31,000 to 79,000 years
ago. Scientists put the most likely date for when he lived at around
50,000 years ago. His descendants became the only lineage to survive
outside of Africa, making him the common
ancestor of every non-African man living today.
But
why would man have first ventured out of the familiar African hunting
grounds and into unexplored lands? It is likely that a fluctuation in
climate may have provided the impetus for your ancestors' exodus out of Africa.
The
African ice age was characterized by drought rather than by cold. It was
around 50,000 years ago that the ice sheets of northern Europe began to
melt, introducing a period of warmer temperatures and moister climate in Africa. Parts of the inhospitable Sahara
briefly became habitable. As the drought-ridden desert changed to a
savanna, the animals hunted by your ancestors expanded their range and
began moving through the newly emerging green corridor of grasslands.
Your nomadic ancestors followed the good weather and the animals they
hunted, although the exact route they followed remains to be determined.
In
addition to a favorable change in climate, around this same time there
was a great leap forward in modern humans' intellectual capacity. Many
scientists believe that the emergence of language gave us a huge
advantage over other early human species. Improved tools and weapons, the
ability to plan ahead and cooperate with one another, and an increased
capacity to exploit resources in ways we hadn't been able to earlier, all
allowed modern humans to rapidly migrate to new territories, exploit new
resources, and replace other hominids.
M89:
Moving Through the Middle East
Fast
Facts
Time
of Emergence: 45,000 years ago
Place:
Northern Africa or the Middle East
Climate:
Middle East: Semiarid grass plains
Estimated
Number of Homo sapiens: Tens of thousands
Tools
and Skills: Stone, ivory, wood tools
The
next male ancestor in your ancestral lineage is the man who gave rise to
M89, a marker found in 90 to 95 percent of all non-Africans. This man was
born around 45,000 years ago in northern Africa or the Middle
East.
The
first people to leave Africa likely followed a coastal route that
eventually ended in Australia.
Your ancestors followed the expanding grasslands and plentiful game to
the Middle East and beyond, and were part of the second great wave of
migration out of Africa.
Beginning
about 40,000 years ago, the climate shifted once again and became colder
and more arid. Drought hit Africa and
the grasslands reverted to desert, and for the next 20,000 years, the
Saharan Gateway was effectively closed. With the desert impassable, your
ancestors had two options: remain in the Middle East,
or move on. Retreat back to the home continent was not an option.
While
many of the descendants of M89 remained in the Middle East, others
continued to follow the great herds of buffalo, antelope, woolly
mammoths, and other game through what is now modern-day Iran to the vast steppes of Central Asia.
These
semiarid grass-covered plains formed an ancient "superhighway"
stretching from eastern France
to Korea.
Your ancestors, having migrated north out of Africa into the Middle East, then traveled both east and west along
this Central Asian superhighway. A smaller group continued moving north
from the Middle East to Anatolia and the
Balkans, trading familiar grasslands for forests and high country.
M170:
Occupying the Balkans
Fast
Facts
Time
of Emergence: 20,000 years ago
Place
of Origin: Southeastern Europe
Climate:
Height of the Ice Age
Estimated
Number of Homo sapiens: Hundreds of thousands
Tools
and Skills: Gravettian culture of the Upper
Paleolithic
Your
ancestors were part of the M89 Middle Eastern Clan that continued to
migrate northwest into the Balkans and eventually spread into central Europe. These people may have been responsible for
the expansion of the prosperous Gravettian
culture, which spread through northern Europe
from about 21,000 to 28,000 years ago.
The Gravettian culture represents the second
technological phase to sweep through prehistoric western Europe. It is
named after a site in La Gravette, France, where a set of tools different
from the preceding era (Aurignacian culture)
was found. The Gravettian stone tool kit
included a distinctive small pointed blade used for hunting big game.
The Gravettian culture is also known for their voluptuous
carvings of big-bellied females often dubbed "Venus" figures.
The small, frequently hand-sized sculptures appear to be of pregnant
women—obesity not being a problem for hunter-gatherers—and may have
served as fertility icons or as emblems conferring protection of some
sort. Alternatively, they may have represented goddesses.
These
early European ancestors of yours used communal hunting techniques,
created shell jewelry, and used mammoth bones to build their homes.
Recent findings suggest that the Gravettians may
have discovered how to weave clothing using natural fibers as early as
25,000 years ago. Earlier estimates had placed weaving at about the same
time as the emergence of agriculture, around 10,000 years ago.
Your
most recent common ancestor, the man who gave rise to marker M170, was
born about 20,000 years ago and was heir to this heritage. He was
probably born in one of the isolated refuge areas people were forced to
occupy during the last blast of the Ice Age, possibly in the Balkans. As
the ice sheets covering much of Europe began to retreat around 15,000
years ago, his descendants likely played a central role in recolonizing northern Europe.
It's
possible that the Vikings descended from this line. The Viking raids on
the British Isles might explain why the lineage can be found in
populations in southern France
and among some Celtic populations.
This
is where your genetic trail, as we know it today, ends. However, be sure
to revisit these pages. As additional data are collected and analyzed,
more will be learned about your place in the history of the men and women
who first populated the Earth. We will be updating these stories
throughout the life of the project.
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