2009-10-24

The seven daughters of Eve

It was a while since I wrote something on this blog. It is Winter now, cold and windy and I have been reading a very interesting book by Bryan Sykes, professor in genetics. He and his crew has DNA tested people all over the World in order to investigate where their ancestors came from and how all people on Earth are related. The book, The seven daughters of Eve claims that all people in Europe remains from only seven women, the oldest lived 45000 years ago.
He can say this because he has tested the mithocondrial DNA (mtDNA). It is a DNA that copies itself and goes from mother to daughter through the generations. He has found a relative to the iceman Ötzi who died 5300 years ago in South England, and a relative to the 12000 old Cheddar man from South England. It was Lord Bath's butler Cuthbert. One of these women lived in Spain, and her Clan went very far North when the Ice age ended, they have found her relatives among the Sami people in Scandinavia. One % of the Aboriginal people in USA remains from a woman who was born in Europe. I think this is very interesting, I would like to DNA test myself.
The oldest People in Europe is the Basques in North East Spain and South West France, their skeletons look exactly like 20000 old Cromagnon skeletons. The first modern people in Europe were hunters, they had bloodtype A Rh-, it is a very common bloodtype among the Basques, later another group came from Anatolia, Turkey, they were the first farmers, they had bloodtype A Rh +. I have A Rh- myself, so I consider myself to a relative to the first modern Europeans. They haven't found any relatives to the Neanderthals.

2 comments:

  1. If you look at the National Geographic Genome Project Website there is a story about an Ojibwe woman who was tested and was found to have the U5 Haplogroup, common in Northern Finland. She also mentions the Cheddarman. So I think you're on to something here...

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  2. They have tested eight men, three from Africa and the rest from the rest of the World, and all except for the Africans had Neanderthal genes. It remains from a small group of people which left Africa 60000 years ago and mated with Neanderthals in the Middle East.

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