The Post of Human Origins

PBS aired two episodes of the amazing First Peoples program last night.  These were episodes about the first peoples of America and Africa.  How very interesting!  I was hoping for some good archaic humans information, and PBS did not disappoint. There were also theories of modern human migration that turned on their heads the old ones that I had been taught.

One very interesting theme of both episodes was that the first peoples who settled America and Africa did not come out of solely one gene pool, such as in a Garden of Eden theory.  They told how remains have been found of people in the Americas who were dated as being here before the previously supposed first people who crossed the famous Bering Straight Land Bridge and who  hunted the great mammoths. This means there must have been at least one different route of human migration into the Americas other than the Land Bridge that we all learned about in elementary school? Interestingly, one of these ancients has been linked genetically to modern Native Americans. That is fascinating.

When we got to the Africa episode, they told of archaic humans!  These were the humans who lived before and with us, the modern humans.  There was a very cool story about an African-American family with an enslaved ancestor who may have been carrying DNA from an archaic human group in Africa.  The family learned this after doing some commercial DNA ancestry testing.

I am also interested in archaic humans due to DNA ancestry testing.  After many years of speculation of Asian or Native American genes in my mother's family, I forked over some money to  a company to test my genetic makeup and report for certain what is there.  Well, the results came back very heavily Southwest Virginia mountaineer by way of England, Ireland, Normandy and Germany.  That is what I had expected.  There was a tiny amount of Subsaharian Africian DNA, which also did not surprise me.  What did surprise me was a little Finnish ancestry.  Where did that come from?  Vikings?  And, the supposed Asian or Native American DNA?  Only teeny amounts showed up, like .001 percent.

The big surprise is that the company said I carry 3.2 percent Neanderthal genome DNA. Apparently this is high normal for a modern human of European ancestry.  Now I am a big Neanderthal fan and sometimes like to type like a Neanderthal, ugh. :)

Mom, whose maternal halogroup we now know, and I visited the Hall of Human Origins in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum this spring. We saw casts of Lucy and the hobbit and facial reconstruction of archaic humans.  When there was an opportunity for a photo shoot that merged my features with the Neanderthal reconstruction, I did it, with this result.  I think you could only be a male Neanderthal.

Thanks, Smithsonian!