Experimental Blog # 217

Notes and quotations from "My European Family" - The First 54,000 Years by Karin Bojs

    This book is a very up-to-date summary of the applications of the most recent advances in high resolution DNA analysis.  Since the author, Karin Bojs, is not a scientific DNA researcher herself, she seems to be very able to give the views of all the contending scientists.

"Doubtless human beings have been singing and dancing since time immemorial, far longer than since the point when we first left the African continent."

" ...when modern humans in Europe interbred with Neanderthals, their descendants must have died out. Researchers can only see definite traces of interbreeding somewhere in the Middle East about 54,000 years ago, and further east in Asia."

    However, it turns out that since Europeans have not quite 2% Neanderthal DNA; it is equivalent that they have a Neanderthal great-great-great-great grandfather, one of 32!, in their family tree. Apparently, the DNA has persisted at this level for about 54,000 years because it is useful to human life."

"Blue eyes and dark skin are an extremely rare combination today, but many Ice Age people seem to have had such an appearance. Blue eyes, dark hair, and dark skin seem to have been commonplace in much of Europe. < > it looks as if many people among Europe's original population of hunters had black hair and quite dark skin. < > as late as 8,000 - or even 5,000 - years ago, many European hunters still bore the original gene variants from Africa, meaning that they were probably quite dark-skinned."

    Advanced DNA analysis has also been very useful, even revolutionary, in determining the times and places of the domestication of dogs, cats, horses, and other animals; and plants too.
    Most of all in this book, DNA analysis is continuing to provide more detailed information of all kinds on the settlement of Europe: the first neolithic migrants, the first farmers, the Iron Age Indo-European language carriers, and others.