Our human ancestors are believed to have followed the herds of animals up the Rift Valley to the new lands of the Middle East. This was the corridor out of Africa, leading to the migration of the DNA that becomes my haplogroup. The Rift Valley was then believed to be an open plain where long grasses beckoned the animals to feed. In turn, these animals beckoned our ancestors to feed on them. I suspect that it was this migrating food supply that offered some advantage to the survival of my particular DNA. The picture to the right shows this not so fertile plain as it exists today. From the valley floor where I took this picture, the mountains rise fairly quickly to around 5,000 feet. It certainly would have looked different some 50,000 years ago!
My JONES haplogroup is R1b1b2. It would have the following "Gene Tree":
> 60,000 years ago - haplogroup A,
50,000 years ago - haplogroup B - to - haplogroup C at 50,000 years ago,
45,000 years ago - haplogroup F;
40,000 years ago - haplogroup K;
35,000 years ago - haplogroup P;
30,000 years ago - haplogroup R - to - haplogroup R1
25,000 years ago - haplogroup R1b
10,000 years ago - haplogroup R1b1b2 which is my Celtic roots.
Imagine that...I stood where my ancestors stood some 50,000 years ago!
What a feeling that must have been - standing where your ancestors had stood so many thousands of years ago.
ReplyDeleteMy husband is R1b1b2a1a1* on the paternal side. His ancestors would have started where yours did.