I
watched this two part BBC documentary soon after listening to the
Icehouse-Greenhouse Earth radio talk per part 1 of this series ... and as my
mind does – thought these journeys would add to the mix ...
 |
| Eddie Izzard c/o RootSounds.co.uk |
... so
to set the scene: this may startle some of you – but I thoroughly enjoyed the
whole camp effect ... and the
genealogy aspects that tie us all in ...
Eddie
Izzard is an actor, comedian, transvestite, and marathon runner extraordinaire
... over and above these talents and attributes – he fits the bill of
look-a-like ancient man ...
This
time instead of going back two to three hundred years through the genealogical
records ... Izzard donates some DNA and we leap backwards in time ...
 |
Dark Green hatched - Namibia to the west,
South Africa to the south and east |
Locked
deep within each of us is a genetic history book of our ancestry and the
journey of mankind over the earth ... man’s family tree across the continents.
Using
our own DNA it is possible to unlock this genetic history and that route map,
which reveals how our ancestors migrated out of Africa to populate the rest of
the world.
This is
the first time the story has been told (on tv) of where our first mother and
father originated ... through DNA and the significant
DNA markers found within a number of present day human genetics recorded in
a huge database.
 |
| Kalahari Desert, Namibia |
Eddie’s
ancestral lines reach England after the Romans had been and conquered, yet give
us all an insight as to how and why our families are where they are now,
wherever that might be.
I
thought these four posts – earth’s history, woman’s path out of Africa and man’s
journey of life also out of Africa, then a summary – seemed to tie in rather
well and give me a perspective on this planet and its occupants that I had not
really taken account of before.
All of
us are descended from one woman and one man ... this is the story of the Izzard
strand of the population of the world – yet one our own ancestors travelled too
...
...
usually our Y and X chromosomes do not change much over time, but occasionally
a significant change, known as a “DNA marker”
occurs, which indicates another branch to a family tree as the globe has been
populated.
Here we
will follow the female line ... all of our lines ... to start with ...
 |
| San Bushman |
The
first woman to whom we are all related was a San Bushman living in the Kalahari
Desert, southern Africa – these Bushmen still live as hunter gatherers, much as
they did 192,000 years ago when our Homo sapiens lineage began (as distinct
from the evolving archaic Homo sapiens).
10,000 generations later the San Bushmen
are one of the last remaining peoples to preserve the way of life that
predominated our existence in Africa for those first 100,000 years.
 |
| Bushmen making fire |
By
60,000 years ago humans had colonised the enormous continent of Africa, so fast
forwarding 140,000 years from our Homo sapiens origins about 200,000 years ago
the necessity to find new land became an imperative.
The
human is a curious creature, and by now had acquired the ability to make fire –
which allowed food to be cooked making it easier to eat, while fire kept us
protected from other species – the predators.
Africa, at this stage, was ‘over-populated’ with an estimated 20,000 peoples ...
 |
| Red Sea narrowing |
Scientists
have DNA tested traditional communities to help establish how we migrated out
across the world ... which has given us a route map of our early journeys ...
It is
thought that humans first left Africa across the narrowing of the Red Sea at
the Bab-el-Mandeb Straight, via the now salt lake of Assal – which sits 150m
below sea level and is saltier than the Dead Sea ... or via ...
 |
| Salt Lake, Assal Sea |
...
Djibouti on the Red Sea ... where “DNA
markers” have been found, strongly
suggesting that our ancestors passed this way to colonise the rest of the
world.
It is
where these early peoples were exploiting the marine environment – evidence of
this has been found in archaeological sites ...
Yemen
is likely to be the next stop – but with today’s politics these links cannot be
checked ... however the other route via Bab-el-Mandel Straight is still a
highway to Arabia.
 |
| Bab-el-Mandel Straight |
A
glacial age was in progress, so the sea level would have been lower making the
crossing easier – this was the time of the exodus of humanity out of Africa ...
... but
what is even more remarkable it is thought that only two women gave birth to
nearly everyone else in the world (via DNA testing available at present) ...
and one of those women went north, the other went off to Australia ...
This is the story of us ‘northerners’ ... as we jump forward another 42,000 years
... to about 18,000 years ago ...
 |
| Arabia and the Persian Gulf - south of Turkey |
...
those early ancestors took advantage of the fertile crescent in the Persian
Gulf up into Turkey ... then after ‘settling’ for about 8,000 years, the birth
of agriculture as we know it today had commenced.
Farming
gave Homo sapiens something else ... that abundance enabled settlers to settle
and develop a life-style – so now we also have the birth of civilisation ...
...
then the blue eyes DNA marker comes
to the fore – the earliest archaeological evidence of domestication of cattle
and sheep has been found on the shore of the Black Sea.
 |
Eastern part of Mediterranean Sea:
showing Turkey and Black Sea |
With
the domesticity of animals came a new food source – milk ... but in those early
communities milk’s intolerance showed itself ... but evolutionary genetic
modification came to the rescue ... and now many of us can digest milk easily.
Back to
blue eyes ... everyone with blue eyes can be traced back to the Black Sea coast
of 10,000 years ago ... however, whoever has blue eyes will have been passed
the gene by both parents ...
...
this anomaly really means the blue gene trait shouldn’t survive ... the
supposition is that blue eyes were more desirable: that sexual attraction
retained the blue eye gene ...
 |
Depiction showing Dardanelles east of
Aegean Sea, Sea of Marmara and
the Bosphorus (entrance to Black Sea) |
The
next move north as part of the agricultural revolution occurring in the Middle
East was probably routed across the Bosphorous ... much as we travel now – if
we don’t fly in.
Now
we’re at about 7,500 years ago ... and there were an estimated 8 million people
...
...
there are two main routes north – up the river valleys into mid Europe, or
along the Mediterranean shores ... one of Eddie’s offshoots journeyed along the
southern fringes for the next 5,000 years ...
 |
Map showing River Danube and its catchment
across southern Europe |
... and
this is where those early great civilisations arose ... the Egyptians,
Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, etc ...
By 79AD
Pompeii was a flourishing city with about 20,000 people living there ... one family
of Eddie’s genetic cousins died 2,000 years ago in a sad and tragic story
arising from that Pompeii explosion.
Eddie’s
direct ancestors took the more northerly route via central Europe on their way
to Britain.
In all
the scientists found 69 key DNA markers
in Eddie’s mother’s DNA line ... and the closer we get to today, the scientists
can be more precise as to his ancestral journey.
 |
Roskilde is in the middle, northern part of
Zealand island. (Roskilde: east of the urban
city of Copenhagen, Denmark) |
The 67th marker is less than 100
generations ago, about 2,000 years ago ... so now living relatives can be
searched out and matched up ...
... we
have arrived at the Viking age, where the search is focused in Scandinavia ...
in fact Roskilde, Denmark ...
...
about 793 AD the Vikings began to raid Britain – their long-ships rowing and
sailing across the North Sea...
... the shallow keels meant that the long-ships
could just row onto the shore – eliminating the need for harbours and giving
the invaders the advantage of surprise.
With a fair wind this would take about three days?!
 |
| A Viking ship |
It is
thought that Eddie’s mother’s ancestors came in the second wave of immigration,
when the Vikings brought their families to settle ...
The
next 68th DNA marker
brings us forward to 1,000 to 500 years ago – to two blonde sisters in
Northamptonshire (+/- middle of England) ... who had always thought they were
Anglo-Saxon in origin ... but no they are Vikings ...
This
finishes Eddie’s mother’s ancestral journey, which shows how many of our ancestors
would have travelled too – and perhaps why and who we are ...
5 years
ago this ground breaking journey would not have been possible ... but through matching
these genetic markers, which the
scientists have mapped via the testing of saliva swabs taken from communities
or peoples around the world.
 |
| Eddie Izzard |
I
expect this has only been possible because Eddie is a celebrity in this country
and his features are pronounced, typically Neanderthal-like ... the low forehead, blue eyes, smallish and
stolid in stature, and with reddish hair ...
... all features found along the Homo-sapiens
world route map, which using these unique
genetic markers has been possible to unravel.
I know
this is long ... but it does set out the route and time frame of us ... and I thought
it worth posting about ... next the male line ...
Hilary
Melton-Butcher
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