For Christmas, Sid and I each had our DNA done through Ancestry.com. Although I'd hoped for something exotic to show up, like one of my friend's DNA which includes Eastern Europe, Asia, Sephardi Jew, Iberian Peninsula, Africa, and Indigenous South America. So I call her the Inca Princess. I knew that my history probably wouldn't include some of that cool stuff, (I knew my dad was mostly German, and my mom always said we're "Scot/Irish" with a little bit of French), but I'd hoped for at least a bit of Moroccan.
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| Who I don't look like |
So here are my results:
- 74% Western Europe (France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, a bit of Denmark)
- 15% Eastern Europe (east as far as Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic countries)
- 5% Great Britain
- 3% Iberian Peninsula
- 1% Italy and Greece
- -1% Ireland
- -1% Finland/Russia
I looked really closely, and "Iberian Peninsula" does include a tiny bit of Morocco and Tunisia (remember Moorish Spain? The Alhambra?)
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| The Alhambra |
I had something, possibly exotic, to cling to. And, since I'm mostly boringly Western European, naturally I liked the idea that my people owned wineries in the Loire Valley,
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| My Pretend Family's winery in the Loire Valley |
or that 1% Italian/Greek meant a villa by the Adriatic or Mediterranean.
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| My wishful Italian Villa |
But, the truth is, these are my people:
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| My Ancestors |
Yes folks, with variations due to climate and topography, this is what all of our ancestors looked like. These tribal people, no matter where they had migrated to, were hunters and gatherers, violent rapists and pillagers. They mixed and bred with other tribes, including probably with Neanderthals, migrated all over the place, and finally settled into agrarian societies. Sid has more Ireland in him than I have, which simply means that more of his raiding hordes than mine ended up in Eire.
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| Sid's Raiding Hordes |
And guess what? We all started in Africa. Yes, in what is now Herto, Ethiopia.
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| Where we all began |
So we're all Africans. The earliest remains of Homo-sapiens, dated 160,00+ years, were found near Herto. Migration patterns from there looked like this:
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| Paleolithic Migration |
Now, since we all originated in the same place, and all of our ancients were pretty much the same, why do some people feel superior to others? It's lovely to say that we're descended from some famous person, or we can trace our American ancestors back to the Mayflower or the Conquistadors but, in the end, none of us is "pure", and we all came from some hardy stock that survived long enough to produce us.
I think that everyone should have their DNA done. Who knows, someone who shall remain nameless
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| How to comb the Orange Hair |
might actually have some Mexican DNA, or Middle Eastern!! It seems like, if everyone knew their DNA, it would be much harder to hate someone who shares the same genomes. And a little perspective might make it into the frontal lobe.
