Dag neef!

Het onderzoek werd gedaan door The Genographic Project van National Geographic. Ze hebben mijn Y-chromosoom gevolgd, paternaal dus. Jij en ik hebben dezelfde maternale genen maar niet paternale. Maar jouw vader is van dezelfde streek in Macedonië. Zowel de familie van mijn vader als jouw vader hebben typische Europese trekken. Ik acht de kans dus zeer groot dat ook jij tot dezelfde groep behoort. Maar om zekerheid te hebben zou jij ook je DNA moeten laten onderzoeken.
Om een volledig beeld van onze afkomst te hebben zou mijn moeder of jouw moeder of een van onze zussen ook hun maternale genen moeten laten nakijken.
Ik behoor dus tot haplogroup I2a (P37.2).
M170: OCCUPYING THE BALKANS
Fast Facts
Time of Emergence: 20,000 years ago
Place of Origin: Southeastern Europe
Climate: Height of the Ice Age
Estimated Number of Homo sapiens: Hundreds of thousands
Tools and Skills: Gravettian culture of the Upper Paleolithic
Your ancestors were part of the M89 Middle Eastern Clan that continued to migrate northwest into the Balkans and eventually spread into central Europe. These people may have been responsible for the expansion of the prosperous Gravettian culture, which spread through northern Europe from about 21,000 to 28,000 years ago.
The Gravettian culture represents the second technological phase to sweep through prehistoric Western Europe. It is named after a site in La Gravette, France, where a set of tools different from the preceding era (Aurignacian culture) was found. The Gravettian stone tool kit included a distinctive small pointed blade used for hunting big game.
The Gravettian culture is also known for their voluptuous carvings of big-bellied females often dubbed "Venus" figures. The small, frequently hand-sized sculptures appear to be of pregnant women—obesity not being a problem for hunter-gatherers—and may have served as fertility icons or as emblems conferring protection of some sort. Alternatively, they may have represented goddesses.
These early European ancestors of yours used communal hunting techniques, created shell jewelry, and used mammoth bones to build their homes. Recent findings suggest that the Gravettians may have discovered how to weave clothing using natural fibers as early as 25,000 years ago. Earlier estimates had placed weaving at about the same time as the emergence of agriculture, around 10,000 years ago.
The man who gave rise to marker M170, was born about 20,000 years ago and was heir to this heritage. He was probably born in one of the isolated refuge areas people were forced to occupy during the last blast of the Ice Age, possibly in the Balkans. As the ice sheets covering much of Europe began to retreat around 15,000 years ago, his descendants likely played a central role in repopulating northern Europe.
It's possible that the Vikings descended from this line. The Viking raids on the British Isles might explain why the lineage can be found in populations in southern France and among some Celtic populations.
P37.2: RECOLONISING EASTERN EUROPE
Fast Facts
Time of Emergence: 15,000 years ago
Place of Origin: Balkans
Climate: Ice Age Refugia
Estimated Number of Homo sapiens: One Million
Tools and Skills: Late Upper Paleolithic
Your haplogroup, I2a, is further defined by a marker known as P37.2. This marker appeared in the Balkans about 15,000 years agoand is still most commonly found there today.
The P37.2 marker likely distinguishes ancient human populations who migrated to Balkan refugia during the glacial maximum at the peak of the last ice age. With much of Europe locked up under frigid sheets of ice humans sought survival in isolated southern European regions that remained habitable.
During the ten thousand years that the ice sheets were at their maximum, individuals living outside of the warmer refugia would have been unable to survive and were thus effectively eliminated from the gene pool. This reduced the genetic diversity of the surviving human populations and helped those lucky lineages to become fixed at higher frequencies in subsequent generations.
When the glaciers finally began to recede, the I2a lineage expanded northward and eastward to repopulate Europeand carried the marker P37.2 along for the ride. Evidence of these journeys can be seen by the marker's significant presence in western Eurasia. Yet today Haplogroup I2a remains primarily a central and southeastern European lineage and is found in highest frequency in those regions.
This is where your genetic trail, as we know it today, ends. However, be sure to revisit these pages. As additional data are collected and analyzed, more will be learned about your place in the history of the men and women who first populated the Earth. We will be updating these stories throughout the life of the project.