A KEVIN DUERINCK

GENETIC MIGRATIONS PAGE

GENETICS AND HUMAN MIGRATION PATTERNS
(GENETIC ANTHROPOLOGY)

[Last revised December 9, 2006]

Introduction

Much discourse is emerging from scientific circles detailing the results of genetic testing in relation to human migration patterns. These studies attempt to show the distribution of ethnic genetic codes over certain geographic areas in relation to time. This page attempts to grasp at and to explain some of this research.

Scientists have now identified the human lineages of the world descended from 10 sons of a genetic Adam and 18 daughters of Eve. This ancestral human population lived in Africa and started to split up 144,000 years ago. This time period is when both the mitochondrial and Y chromosome trees first branch out.

You will also notice that the analysis of DNA from many ancient skeletons and mummies (studies mentioned below) is performed on the mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA. This "ancient" DNA is often degraded and present in very small quantities. mtDNA offers the best chance of isolating DNA from ancient samples because it is small and is present in the cell with many copies.

18 DAUGHTERS OF A GENETIC EVE

Dr. Douglas C. Wallace and his colleagues at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta constructed a world female genetic tree based on mitochondrial DNA. Dr. Wallace found that almost all American Indians have mtNDA that belong to lineages he named A, B, C and D. Europeans belong to lineages H through K and T through X. The split between the two main branches in the European tree suggests that modern humans reached Europe 39,000 to 51,000 years ago, Dr. Wallace calculates, a time that corresponds with the archaeological date of at least 35,000 years ago.

In Asia the ancestral lineage is known as M, with descendant branches E, F and G. In the Americas are lineages A through D. In Africa there is a single main lineage, known as L, which is divided into three branches. L3, the youngest branch, is common in East Africa and is believed to be the source of both the Asian and European lineages.

Dr. Wallace's mitochondrial DNA lineages are "haplogroups" but known as "daughters of Eve," because all of the lineages are branches of the trunk that stems from the mitochondrial Eve.

Dr. Wallace is now exploring the root of the mitochondrial tree. In the March 2000 American Journal of Human Genetics, he and colleagues identify the Vasikela Kung of the northwestern Kalahari desert in southern Africa as the population that lies nearest to the root of the human mtDNA tree. Another population that seems almost equally old is that of the Biaka pygmies of Central Africa.

THE 7 EUROPEAN DAUGHTERS OF EVE

Prof. Sykes and Oxford University researchers in England have identified seven ancestral matriarchal groups from which all Europeans appear to be descended. Every European can trace his or her evolutionary history back to the seven ancestral mother groups, also referred to as the Seven European Daughters of Eve. Sykes et al. obtained buccal cells from 6,000 individuals and analyzed the samples using the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis. It is known that mtDNA mutates at a very slow rate, such as 1 mutation in every 10,000 years. So they figured that the women would have lived between 8,000 and 45,000 years ago. What is amazing is that all seven of the genetic groups appear to be descended from the Lara clan, one of three clans that still exist today in Africa. This is called the African Eve theory. It was proposed in the late 1980's by Allan Wilson, Mark Stoneking and others. The African Eve theory states that all humans share a common African ancestor.

The Seven European Daughters of Eve matriarchal groups correspond to Dr. Wallace's lineages above, and were given names by Prof. Sykes:
Helena: This clan lived in the ice-capped Pyrenees. As the climate warmed, Helena’s descendants trekked northward to what is now England, some 12,000 years ago. Members of this group are now present in all European countries.
Jasmine: Her people had a relatively happy life in Syria, where they farmed wheat and raised domestic animals. Jasmine’s descendants traveled throughout Europe, spreading their agricultural innovations with them.
Katrine: Members of this group lived in Venice 10,000 years ago. Today most of Katrine’s clan lives in the Alps.
Tara: Sykes’ maternal ancestry goes back to this group, which settled in Tuscany 17,000 years ago. Descendants ventured across northern Europe and eventually crossed the English Channel.
Ursula: Users of stone tools, Ursula’s clan members drifted across all of Europe.
Valda: Originally from Spain, Valda and her immediate descendants lived 17,000 years ago. Later relatives moved into northern Finland and Norway.
Xenia: Her people lived in the Caucasus Mountains 25,000 years ago. Just before the Ice Age, this clan spread across Europe, and even reached the Americas. [As Dr. Wallace discovered, the X pattern is a rare European lineage and is also among the northern Native Americans such as the Ojibwa and Sioux.]

10 SONS OF A GENETIC ADAM

A male genetic tree based on the analyses of the Y chromosome has been constructed by Dr. Peter A. Underhill and Dr. Peter J. Oefner of Stanford University. In March 2000, a colleague published the preliminary findings of this study in a book, "Genes, People and Languages," by Dr. Luca Cavalli-Sforza (see the Dr's own study "Two Waves", below). The tree starts with a single Y chromosomal Adam with 10 principal branches. Of these sons of Adam, the first three (designated I, II and III) are found almost exclusively in Africa. Son III's lineage migrated to Asia and fathered sons IV-X. These sons then spread through the rest of the world. Son IV spread to the Sea of Japan, son V to northern India, and sons VI and IX to the South Caspian.

THE 10 EUROPEAN FOUNDING FATHERS

Ornello Semino of the University of Pavia, Italy and Peter Underhill of Stanford University, California, announced the results of their y-DNA study of 1007 men from 25 different regions in Europe and the Middle East. According to them, there were three waves of migrations to Europe: 40,000, 22,000, and 9,000 years ago. 95% of European men can trace themselves to 1 of 10 male ancestors. More than 80 percent of European men inherited y-DNA from Paleolithic ancestors who lived in Europe 25,000 to 40,000 years ago. The other twenty percent inherited from Neolithic farmers in Europe 9,000 to 10,000 years ago. Sounds like Wallace's 18 daughters of Eve and Sykes 7 European daughters of Eve. Wallace used mtDNA and also looked at genetic results with archaelogical data, like Underhill and Semino have done with their y-DNA study. This may help settle the question of who passed on more genes--the hunter-gatherers (Paleolithic) or the newcomers (Neolithic).

TWO MIGRATION WAVES OUT OF AFRICA

This study came out of the University of Padua, Italy, under the direction of Dr. Luca Cavalli-Sforza and was published in the December issue of the journal Nature Genetics. In the study, the mtDNA in the blood of people from India and east Africa was analyzed. The results showed that a common maternal ancestor coming out of Africa existed 50,000 years ago between the people of Ethiopia and the Arabian peninsula, and India. Matches were not found in the Middle Eastern populations. In another earlier study, it was found that an earlier migration occurred, pegged at 100,000 years ago, involving a common maternal ancestor coming out of Africa by a northern route, settling in the Mediterranean and in Greece.

Genetic Evidence and Present Day DNA Scott Brown's most excellent site.

MIGRATION EFFECT ON LANGUAGES

There are of course efforts under way to take all of these studies above and to relate them to the formation of languages. Dr. Cavalli-Sforza believes the Y chromosome lineages may be associated with the major language groups of the world. Dr. Joseph Greenberg, a linguist at Stanford University, has proposed three migrations, corresponding to the three language groups of the Americas, known as Amerind, Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleut.

News Flash:

You know all the tests tracing back living people's mtDNA to a most recent common ancestor or matriarchal line? Well, in a December 1999 article in the journal Science, Philip Awadalla of the University of Edinburgh, Scotland basically says that those early assumptions may not be fully true. If not, the rate of mutation for mtDNA, often thought of as 1 mutation every 10,000 years, will have to be recalculated. He says this because there may be some reason to suspect that male and female mtDNA somehow combine. It has been known that male mtDNA in sperm is destroyed by the egg after fertilization. It is anybody's guess how male DNA, mtDNA could be involved with the female mtDNA. More studies will have to be done to replicate this study and to further it. [See Philip Awadalla, Adam Eyre-Walker, and John Maynard Smith (1999). Linkage disequilibrium and recombination in hominid mitochondrial DNA. Science 286:2524-2525.]

NEANDERTHALS: CAN'T I CALL YOU DADDY?

Professor Svante Paabo and colleagues from Germany's Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have sequenced nuclear DNA from the thigh bone of a 38,000 year old Neanderthal. Analysis shows that Neanderthals and modern human's lineages split around half a million years ago. We still share more than 99.5 per cent of our DNA. (See journal Nature) Professor Edward Rubin and colleagues from the Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, California came to the same conclusion using another method (see journal Science). For more in-depth coverage, see "Analysis of one million base pairs of Neanderthal DNA", Nature 444, 330-336, 16 Nov 2006, www.nature.com; "Sequencing and Analysis of Neanderthal Genomic DNA", Science 314: 1113-1118, 17 November 2006, www.sciencemag.org

In the journal Nature, March __, 2000, William Goodwin of the University of Glasgow and counterparts in Russia and Sweden state that DNA from the bones of a Neanderthal baby who died 29,000 years ago in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains is proof that Neanderthals are not ancestors of modern humans. This study agrees with another Neanderthal study from 1997, where DNA from bones of a Neanderthal found in Feldhofer Cave in Germany were analyzed. What we all should look for now is for specimens that show signs of Neanderthals and humans interbreeding. If we take the analyses of the 1997 and 1999 studies and compare with future studies, we may find a significant divergence to support that hypothesis. The 1999 study showed that the baby’s mitochondrial DNA differed from that of the other Neanderthal in 3.5 percent of the locations tested. However, as compared to humans, the divergence of the Neanderthal DNA was 7 percent, or double. Because of this, coupled with the expected rate of change, Neanderthals and humans had a common ancestor about 500,000 years ago.

Let us not forget another study in the October 26, 1999 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In that study, Neanderthal bones coming out of Vindija cave north of Zagreb, Croatia, indicate that Neanderthals and modern man must have coexisted in central Europe for at least 6,000 years. Probabilities of cohabitation and genetic exchange go up, don't you think?

Genetic Evidence and Ancient DNA Scott Brown's most excellent site.

CHEDDAR MAN, ENGLAND

This is my favorite, maybe because of the name. He is a 9,000-year-old skeleton who lived in a cave in Cheddar Gorge in southwest England, and who has a distant male relative living right down the street in Cheddar, England. Cheddar Man was a Stone Age hunter-gatherer who lived in southwestern England. Scientists from Oxford University's Institute of Molecular Medicine, led by Dr. Sykes, analyzed mitochondrial DNA extracted from one of Cheddar Man's molar teeth and performed mtDNA tests. The results were compared to those of 20 people in the area. Cheddar Man belongs to Haplogroup U. Researchers say that the results show that Britons descended from European hunter-gatherers rather than Middle Eastern farmers. I would note that since mtDNA analyses were done, we cannot say that Cheddar Man fathered any children since the mtDNA of Cheddar would have been passed down by his Momma. The living relative and Cheddar had a most recent common ancestor 10,000 years ago. Cheddar Man suffered a violent death at the age of about 23 in 7150 BC.

PEÑON WOMAN

A skeleton with a perfectly preserved skull belonged to a 26 year old woman who died in what is now the suburbs of Mexico City. Radio carbon dating has shown that skulls found in Mexico are almost 13,000 years old. The shape of the skulls is key -- the oldest being long and narrow-headed (dolichocephalic), unlike Native American remains. Some of the other skulls found were short and broad (brachycephalic), just like American Indians. This suggests that humans colonized Mexico in two waves and that they may have lived in North America before the American Indians (see Kennewick Man story below as well). Key people involved in Peñon Woman: Dr. Silvia Gonzalez of John Moores University in Liverpool, UK; Robert Hedges of Oxford University. BBC News Story on Penon Woman; More on Penon Woman

KENNEWICK MAN

Yes, have you heard? As of April 25, 2000, the court allowed DNA testing of this male skeleton, 9,300 years old, from the state of Washington (not originally, if you know what I mean!). mtDNA tests were performed in laboratories at Yale University, the University of Michigan, and the University of California, Davis. The mtDNA results were inconclusive U.C. Davis Molecular Anthropology Laboratory. The Department of the Interior then announced that under federal law, the Kennewick remains were culturally affiliated with the five claiming tribes on the basis of oral tradition and geography, and that no further study was needed. I believe the study showed that Kennewick Man could reasonably be termed to belong to one of four identified haplogroups, or genetic groups, that have been identified among five named Columbia Basin tribes and bands of Native Americans. Ancestor of Native Americans, or European heritage? Ancestor of the Ainu people of Japan? The court (or agency), however, did order the remains of Kennewick Man to be turned over to five Native American groups. The involved tribes on reservations in Washington, Oregon and Idaho are the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, the Colville Confederated Tribes, the Wanapum Band, the Yakama Nation and the Nez Perce Tribe.

Trial court--Early litigation: Bonnichsen v. United States Department of the Army, Federal District Court for the District of Oregon, No. 96-1481-JE. The plaintiff alleged causes of action (wrongs) under the Administrative Procedure Act, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (25 U.S.C. 3001 et seq.), National Historic Preservation Act (16 U.S.C. 470 et seq.), the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (16 U.S.C. 470aa et seq.), and other grounds. The Kennewick Man remains are the subject of a Notice of Intent to Repatriate Human Remains published by the Army Corps in 1996; numerous orders and two published opinions of the United States District Court for the District of Oregon [Bonnichsen v. U.S. Dept. of Army, 969 F. Supp. 614 (Dist. Oregon 1997); Bonnichsen v. U.S. Dept. of Army, 969 F. Supp 628 (Dist. Oregon 1997)]; a letter of final determination dated September 21, 2000 from the Secretary of the Interior, and a Response to Requests for Scientific Study of Kennewick Man Human Remains, dated September 22, 2000, from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Trial court--later stages: FINALLY!!! We had been waiting for the ruling from Judge John Jelderks of U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon. He ruled that eight prominent anthropologists may now study the remains of Kennewick Man. In a nutshell: The evidence showed that Kennewick Man did not resemble modern Native Americans and could not be culturally linked to any modern Indian society, thus the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act did not apply to this situation. Judge Jelderks ruled that Kennewick Man is not Native American under the law and thus he comes under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act. This Act was designed to protect discoveries so that they might be studied for the benefit of all Americans.

Appellate court: The United States Department of Justice as well as the Nez Perce, Umatilla, Yakama and Colville tribes have appealed Judge Jelderks' decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals as of late October, 2002. On September 10, 2003 a three judge panel with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (in Portland) heard oral arguments in this appeal of Judge Jelderks' decision at the trial court level. The main issues involve the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act as well as whether skeletons as old as Kennewick Man are considered Native American under the law. Another big issue is whether the tribes requesting Kennewick Man's remains were culturally affiliated with Kennewick Man. The federal U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, upheld an August decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge John Jelderks in Portland, Ore. The three judge panel found that the remains did not fall under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and could be studied under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act. The federal appellate court agreed with trial court Judge Jelderks that the federal grave-protection law does not apply because there is no evidence connecting the remains with any existing tribe.

Testing of Kennewick Man: Tests began on the skeletal remains known as Kennewick Man on July 6, 2005.

Books on Kennewick Man:
"Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the First Americans" by James Chatters
"Riddle of the Bones: Politics, Science, Race, and the Story of Kennewick Man" by Roger Downey (2000 Springer-Verlag, New York. xi + 202 pages).

ICEMAN (aka "Oetzi")

(See the book "Uncovering the Life and Times of a Prehistoric Man Found in an Alpine Glacier, by Brenda Fowler"; also "The Man in the Ice", by Konrad Spindler (although his conclusions are strange re the Iceman's death.)

Iceman was a body found frozen in the Alps in September 1991. He was taken to Innsbruck University, Forensic Medicine Institute in Innsbruck, Austria. Iceman was found on the Italian side of the Austrian-Italian border, only by a few feet. Anyway, when did Iceman live? The answer is 5,348-5,298 years ago! Iceman is now in a museum in Bolzano, Italy. It is now known how Iceman died--he was shot in the back from behind, and the arrow pierced his left shoulder blade. Scientists, using computerized tomography (X-rays produce a multidimensional image), found a flint arrowhead embedded in his left shoulder.

mtDNA tests were performed and showed that the Iceman's mtDNA fit with mtDNA sequences of Europeans, specifically of those individuals living in the Oetzi Valley and Alpine regions (Handt 1994:1775).The mtDNA mutations for the Ice Man, differing from the Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS), are 16224[C] and 16311[C]. His ancient momma as far as mtDNA testing and population studies go, would be Katrine (Haplogroup K), one of the "daughters of Eve" as designated by the scientific community.

Regarding human leukocyte antigen (HLA) testing, specimens were taken from Iceman's calcaneous (The largest of the tarsal bones--situated at the lower and back part of the foot forming the heel). Found was the HLA-DRB1*1402 allele, which is extremely rare in Europe, but is common in Inuits and South American Indians.

ICE MAIDEN

The Ice Maiden was a girl only 12-14 years old who was apparently sacrificed by Inca priests 500 years ago. She was a frozen and well preserved mummy, discovered in September 1995 on Mt. Ampato in the Peruvian Andes by anthropologist Johan Reinhard and Miguel Zarate. Her mtDNA was analyzed at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Maryland. Some mtDNA from a heart sample was analyzed using the PCR method and gel electrophoresis. "We conclude from our analysis that the Ice Maiden's mitochondrial DNA HV1 sequence places her precisely in the native American Indian Haplogroup A. Her HV2 DNA sequence represents a new HV2 variant not found in the current mitochondrial DNA sequence databases and is most closely related to the Ngobe people of Panama" (Mike Knapp, TIGR). For an article on Ice Maiden, see the January 1997 issue of National Geographic.

MUNGO MAN -- LAKE MUNGO 3

Recent scientific dating of Mungo Man, a male skeleton found in 1974 in Australia, specifically Lake Mungo in NSW 25 years ago, places the age of Mungo at 40,000 years old, not between 56,000 and 68,000 years old as previously thought. The theory is that this group of individuals represented by our buddy "Mungo" combined with other groups arriving later to form the present Aborigines and Melanesians. The archaeology team at Australian National University includes Dr. Rhys Jones, who helped find Mungo Man, and Dr. Alan Thorne. This dating of Mungo Man meshes with the "Out of Africa" theory. Presumably settlement of the Australian continent would have occurred thousands of years before Mungo Man showed up.

Australian National University researchers published the results of mtDNA testing on Lake Mungo 3. The DNA did not match that of living humans. Either the Mungo lineage evolved in Australia, not Africa, or it could mean that the Mungo lineage went extinct.

BERINGIA AND TRAVEL TO THE AMERICA'S

Beringia was a land bridge between 12,000 and 13,000 years ago that was evident once glaciers in the area melted and sea levels decreased. Beringia linked up Siberia and what is now Alaska. What is disputed by scientists is what people came over to the America's, when and how. By land? By boat? Paleo-Indians are believed to have used Beringia. Much DNA evidence is pointing to the use of water travel by Asians. There is the study involving the Olmec "celt" inscriptions versus the Chinese Shang writing, which in many cases is very close. We must also remember the concept of independent invention--that humans do independently invent things.

CHINESE MIGRATION TO MEXICO, B.C.

Researchers studied Native Americans from the Navajo, Chamorro and Flathead tribes. They then determined that all three groups possess a unique type of retrovirus gene, JCV, found only in China and Japan (National Academy of Sciences, 1197). Would seem to suggest travel by boat.

VIRUS LINKS ANDES WITH JAPAN

There is a theory that South America was colonized from Asia thousands of years before any Spaniards set foot in South America. DNA from bone marrow of 1,500 year old mummies found in northern Chile was analyzed. The results show that a virus associated with adult T-cell leukemia was prevalent in native Andeans and in a small section of people from southwest Japan. The study also theorizes that the virus may have originated from paleo-Mongoloids who migrated to Japan and South America more than 10,000 years ago. No doubt that this was an mtDNA PCR study (Nature Medicine, 1999).

IRISH WITH SPANISH GENETIC INFLUENCE?

Y-chromosome variation and Irish origins, E. Hill, M. Jobling, D. Bradley, 23 March 2000 Volume 404 Nature No. 6776

AMERICANS DESCENDED FROM AUSTRALIANS?

Americans from European ancestry are traced to one of the daughters of Africa Eve, as found in a study above. A further study examined a 11,500-year-old skull, found in Brazil, which appears to belong to a woman of African or Aboriginal (Australia) descent. This might suggest boat travel.

ARLINGTON SPRINGS WOMAN

There is also the Arlington Springs Woman, 13,000 years old, found on Santa Rosa Island. John Johnson, curator of anthropology at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, should have finished with mtDNA testing of this California babe. Dr. Johnson has indicated that a test by another scientist preliminarily showed the mitochondrial DNA of Arlington Springs Woman belonged to mtDNA Haplogroup B. However, to date the lab was unable to replicate their findings.

HUMAN SKULL FAMILY TREE

What is a human skull family tree? Actually, it is an image by the American Museum of Natural History that documents in family tree style the ancestral types of modern man. From 4 million year old Australopithecus afarensis to Homo sapiens, also showing the dead ends of Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis. It has not been updated to take into account Kenyanthropus platyops (Kenya Man) or Ardipithecus ramidus kaddaba (4 foot hominid's eleven bone fragments found in Ethiopia's Awash site) See Human Skull Family Tree

Tournai Man from Chad: Researchers in Chad, led by Michel Brunet of the University of Poitiers in France, found in 2002 some 6 to 7 million year old jaw fragments, some isolated teeth and a skull of what appeared to be a hominid. They named it Sahelanthropus tchadensis. Many think that this "Tournai Man" hominid is the earliest known ancestor of modern humans. His branch led to humans, and the other split led to chimps. Researchers hope to find a knee, hip or foot to show if this "hominid" walked upright. The foramen magnum, the hold where the spinal cord enters the skull, is like that of humans instead of apes. For further information, see the April 7, 2005 journal "Nature".

OMO I and OMO II

In 1967 2 human specimens were discovered near the Omo River in southwestern Ethiopia that have now been dated to around 195,000 years old. Omo I includes part of a skull and skeletal bones. Omo II has more of a skull but no skeletal bones. This study corroborates genetic studies that estimate that Homo sapiens arose about 200,000 years ago.

KENYA MAN (Kenyanthropus platyops)

The March 22, 2001 issue of Nature has 2 articles concerning the 1999 discovery of Kenyanthropus platyops, evidently a new hominid, who is 3.5 million years old, a contemporary of Australopithecus afarensis ("Lucy"). Found on the western shores of Lake Turkana, Kenya. How close were Kenyanthropus platyops and what was called Homo rudolfensis--is it now Kenyanthropus rudolfensis, the descendant of K. platyops? The human skull family tree is further complicated because of the other recent discoveries of Australopithecus anamensis, garhi, and bahrelghazali. There is also another genus, Ardipithecus, which is dated at 4.4 million years old. Stay tuned regarding the French discovery of Orrorin tugenensis, supposedly the oldest known hominid--at 6 million years old.

Kenyanthropus platyops--Kenya Man (3.5 million to 3.2 million years old); AND Ardipithecus ramidus kaddaba (6 million years old), a 4 foot hominid whose eleven bone fragments were found in Ethiopia's Awash site and actually came from 5 different individuals. Ardipithecus ramidus kaddaba challenges the Millennium Man, Orrorin tugenensis (6 million year old fossil, also found in Kenya--no consensus if a hominid yet), as the oldest hominid fossil. See the October 2001 issue of National Geographic which gives a very small treatment of such an exciting area. This issue also has a very general proposed human tree from paleoanthropologist Dr. Meave Leakey, but not with all the "players" (skulls). See also 2 skulls unearthed at Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia, aged 1.7 million years old: Georgia Fossils First Europeans?

DMANISI MAN ("Georgia Man")

Dmanisi Man is a 1.75 million year old skull found by a castle in Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia (former state of the former Soviet Union). The skull had a very small brain, big canine teeth, and a thin brow. Dmanisi Man also had short legs it is surmised, like H. habilis. This all suggests that maybe it was not Homo erectus that first migrated out of Africa, but that it might have been a more primitive being between H. erectus and the earlier Homo habilis, such as Dmanisi Man. Tools found at Dmanisi included simple chopping and scraping tools. The team from Georgian State Museum in Tbilisi, Georgia, led by David Lordkipanidze, will now look for more of Dmanisi Man's skeleton, for other skulls, and for tools. [Please also read about Toumai Man below.] [Dmanisi Man adapted from story by Rick Gore, National Geographic, July or August 2002]

TOUMAI MAN

The Toumai Man, from Chad, in Central Africa, is actually a skull that is between 6 and 7 million years old. It was found by a team from the University of Poitiers in France, led by Michel Brunet. Toumai Man's skull was the size of a chimpanzee's with human facial features of those skulls that are dated at only a couple of million years old. It had small teeth like a chimp but thicker enamel. It's nose is like later hominids, has more of a pronounced brow ridge, and it's spinal column was moved forward a bit more like other upright hominids. Toumai Man lends support to the theory that human evolution was not as straightforward as previously thought. It appears that humans may have not evolved in one straight evolutionary line beginning with Homo habilis and leading up to Homo sapiens (us). It seems that many different hominids were undergoing evolution over millions of years, so talk of finding a "missing link" between humans and apes [H. habilis and H. erectus (between habilis and sapiens)] does not have a lot of meaning anymore. Whether Toumai Man leads directly to modern day humans is a question that may go unanswered. A good book to read, that talks of the new "bush" theory, rather than a tree theory, is: "The Monkey in the Mirror: Essays on the Science of Human Evolution" by Ian Tattersal, curator of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, New York. I doubt if Toumai Man is in there, but I have not read the book as of this writing. [Toumai Man adapted from story by Tim Friend, USA Today, 7/11/2002]

GAWIS CRANIUM

March 2006: A hominid skull, between 500,000 and 250,000 years old, was found at Gawis in Ethiopia's northeastern Afar region by the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project in Ethiopia (contact person Dr. Sileshi, based at Indiana University). It may be a missing link between Homo erectus and modern man, or it may be one of many lines that died out.

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