<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-1669" title="roots-television-screenshot" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/roots-television-screenshot.jpg" alt="" width="305" height="187" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/roots-television-screenshot.jpg 305w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/roots-television-screenshot-300x184.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 305px) 100vw, 305px" />
People naturally yearn to know where they came from. Genealogists scratch that itch by poring over historical documents such as vital records, tax rolls, census lists and diaries to reconstruct their family history.
In recent years, genealogists have also begun using genetic information as another way of understanding their identity and establishing kinship. With the growth of several genetics companies specializing in genetic ancestry — including 23andMe’s <a href="https://23andme.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Personal Genome Service</a>â„¢ — genealogists now have an entirely new approach to use in tracing their roots. DNA is especially useful for recent immigrants, Native Americans or African-Americans whose ancestors left few historical records, but passed down a trail of genetic breadcrumbs that can lead back to a specific geographic region — and in some cases even a particular tribe.

The growth of genetic ancestry services, combined with the availability of resources on the internet, has also led many genealogists to share their stories and connect with others. Now Roots Television is adding viral video to the modern genealogist&#8217;s tool box. Roots Television markets itself as a video-based genealogy website, created for and by avid genealogists and family history lovers. They create online web shows on a variety of topics, while also licensing other programs. A recent glance at their programming line-up revealed a brief video on the art of document restoration, interviews with well-known genealogists, and reviews of new genealogy computer software. There is even an area of the site dedicated to user-submitted video, called RootsTube. Here, anyone can tell their story &#8211; whether it is an interesting discovery about their family history, a family reunion video, or even a tip on how to best utilize a particular genealogy resource.
So far there isn&#8217;t much content related to genetic genealogy, but the website is still in its infancy; we hope to see more genetics-related content over time.

23andMe Blog

23andMe Blog Team

Roots Television: The Internet TV Channel for Genealogists

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-1528" title="istock_000005643534xsmall2" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/istock_000005643534xsmall2.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" />
One of the most infamous emperors of Chinese antiquity was the very first: Qin Shi Huang.  
Also known as Ying Zheng, he ruled the Chinese state of Qin from 247-210 BC.  When he came to power, various Chinese kingdoms were engaged in a struggle against each other for superiority; by the time he died in 210 BC, he had managed to unify these warring states, becoming the First Emperor of China and ushering in the Qin Dynasty.
<h6>The Great Wall</h6>
Under the rule of Qin Shi Huang, massive construction projects were undertaken to help build the infrastructure needed in imperial China, often at the expense of many lives.  
The first version of the Great Wall of China was built during this period, as was the first national road system.
<h6>A Mausoleum</h6>
But the most famous remnant of Qin Shi Huang’s rule was his mausoleum in the Shaanxi province of central China.  
Construction began in 246 BC – in addition to the tomb that would house the body of the emperor, there were large palaces, valuables, rivers flowing with mercury, and scenes of the earth and sky painted on the ceiling.  
<h6>An Army of Clay</h6>
But the most spectacular feature of the mausoleum was the emperor’s guards:   the Terracotta Army.   These 8,000 soldiers, crafted using molds and clay, stand guard over the Emperor Qin’s tomb so they may aid him in the afterlife.
The construction of the mausoleum, like other construction projects during the emperor’s rule, involved a huge workforce.   An estimated 700,000 workers were involved in the mausoleum construction alone.
<h6>Who Built the Terracotta Army</h6>
Until now the identity of these workers has remained a mystery, but a study published last week in <a id="mg1z" title="PLOS ONE" href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003275" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">PLoS ONE</a> has attempted to discover who these workers were by examining the DNA preserved in their bones.
In 2003, hundreds of skeletal remains were unearthed near the mausoleum.   They were believed to be the remains of the workers who built the monument, and a preliminary examination of their bones revealed that these men were engaged in heavy manual labor up to their death. But due to poor preservation of the remains, scientists could not determine the ethnic origins of these workers.   Since the Qin Dynasty controlled a vast territory and encompassed 22 million people, these workers could have come from anywhere. 
<h6>Follow the Mito</h6>
So Chinese scientists decided to examine the mitochondrial DNA of these workers directly to discover their ethnic origins.
These scientists started by collecting DNA samples from 50 thigh bones for analysis.   Because ancient DNA analysis is prone to contamination, the researchers took extreme precautions in performing their analysis.   In the end, the state of decay of the samples meant the DNA of only 19 individuals could be analyzed.
What the researchers found was that these workers had come from a variety of places across East Asia.   In fact, the 19 individuals fell into 16 unique maternal haplogroups.   The most common haplogroup was N9a, which is thinly spread throughout central and eastern Asia today.   Other maternal haplogroups represented included M8a, A, and D5, which are all present among East Asian populations today.
<h6>Origins</h6>
Only four of the 19 specimens could be considered ethnically Han, which is the most common ethnic group in China today.   Interestingly, seven individuals came from southern China, and a smaller number came from northern China.   One individual even carried the maternal haplogroup usually seen only among certain Japanese populations, M7a.
The authors conclude that the overall diversity of mitochondrial genetic types seen in these 19 individuals indicates that workers were taken from across China, something that is also asserted in historical records from the period.   While further analysis of a greater number of remains is necessary, this initial study has shown that workers from all parts of the burgeoning Qin Empire may have taken part in building some of the first structures of Imperial China.

Who Built the Terracotta Army? The Genetic Origins of the Qin Dynasty Mausoleum Workers

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-1261" title="samaritans" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/samaritans.jpg" alt="" width="350" height="186" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/samaritans.jpg 350w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/samaritans-300x159.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px" />
Upon hearing the name &#8220;Samaritans,&#8221; many people are immediately reminded of the famous passage from the Gospel of Luke (10: 25-37), the so called ‘Good Samaritan’ parable. Jesus tells of a Levite (a Jew) who is beaten and left on the side of the road. None who pass by the injured man stop to help, save a Samaritan. This parable was originally meant to highlight the fact that, even when two groups of people disapprove of each other (as did the Jews and the Samaritans), a single person from one group can still show kindness towards a member of the other.
<h2>Who Are The Samaritans?</h2>
Many people who know this parable or the term ‘Good Samaritan’ are unaware of who the Samaritans really are. In actuality, the Samaritans are a unique people whose history can be traced to Biblical times.
They are not considered ethnically Jewish or Arab, despite the fact that Samaritans have lived in close proximity to both groups for thousands of years. Though they used to be numerous, there are now only about 700 Samaritans left, divided between two towns near Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. They rarely marry non-Samaritans, and their religious practices are distinct from all Jewish sects.
Their ability to remain both (seemingly) genetically and culturally isolated in one of the most diverse regions on Earth has piqued the interest of both geneticists and historians, who have spent years trying to understand this unique group of people tucked away in the Levantine desert.
<h2>The Origins of the Samaritans</h2>
The origins of the Samaritans have always been clouded in uncertainty.
The traditional view is that, when the Jews were captured by the Assyrians in 721 BC as part of the infamous Babylonian Captivity, the Assyrians then repopulated Israel with people from the land of Samaria to the east. Then, when the Jews finally returned from exile 200 years later, they found these Samaritans already living in their ancestral homeland. As can be expected, tensions between the Samaritans and the Jews quickly escalated and would persist for the next several hundred years.
<h2>New Insights</h2>
However, recent archaeological findings, coupled with a deeper examination of religious texts, have led researchers to propose that the Samaritans were Jews themselves.
(Learn more about your ancestry and trace your family tree with 23andMe&#8217;s <a class="waffle-rich-text-link" href="https://www.23andme.com/dna-ancestry/">DNA Ancestry service</a>, or sign-up for a <a class="waffle-rich-text-link" href="https://www.23andme.com/membership/">membership</a> for advanced ancestry reports and features.)
Specifically, researchers argue that during the Babylonian Captivity, not all Jews were rounded up by the Assyrians. Some stayed behind, possibly marrying other Assyrian exiles who themselves had been relocated. This would make sense given that, even though Samaritans are not considered Jews, they share many of the same ancient Hebrew rituals.
While these rituals have evolved for hundreds of years among most Jewish sects, they remain unchanged among the isolated Samaritans, even to this day. This also fits well with the historical animosity of Jews toward Samaritans because of their association with non-Jews.
<h2>The Genetics of Samaritans</h2>
But what do the genetic data reveal about the Samaritans&#8217; origins? Luckily, there have been many genetic studies of the Samaritans, both to uncover their origins and to understand how they have survived so many generations of isolation.
One such study by Peidong Shen and colleagues in the Journal Human Mutation has used both mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA of modern-day Samaritans to discover their origins and genetic relationship to Near Eastern Jews. Their results are fascinating.
The mitochondrial DNA results, which show maternal history (i.e. your mother’s mother’s mother, etc.), reveal no major difference between the Samaritans, Jews, or Palestinians in the Levant who were also sampled. These three groups have relatively similar maternal genetic histories.
<h2>Insights from the Y-Chromosome</h2>
However, the story of the Y-chromosome, which shows paternal history (i.e. your father’s father’s father) is quite different. Indeed, not only are the Y-chromosomes of the Jews and Samaritans more similar to each other than either is to the Palestinians&#8217;, the Y-chromosomes of the Samaritans show striking similarities to a very specific Y-chromosome most often associated with Jewish men. Although the Samaritan type is slightly different from the Jewish type, it is clear that the two share a common ancestor, probably within the last few thousand years.
As a result, Shen and colleagues argue that the traditional hypothesis, that the Samaritans were transported into the Levant by the Assyrians and have no Jewish heritage, is largely incorrect. Rather, these Samaritan lineages are remnants of those few Jews who did not go into exile when the Assyrians conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 721 BC. Those who remained in the Levant may have take non-Jewish wives, which would account for the genetic admixture on the female side. But according to the authors the Y-chromosome clearly shows that the Samaritans and the Jews share common ancestry dating to at least 2,500 years ago.
The similarity between the Y chromosomes of Samaritans and Jews illustrates that groups considered quite distinct today can actually have relatively recent genetic connections. Indeed, we are all connected to each other in some way through our shared genes, shared ancestry, and shared history. The research into the origin of the Samaritans is just one example of this connection.
<h2>Learn More</h2>
Explore more about 23andMe&#8217;s ancestry reports <a href="https://www.23andme.com/ancestry-composition-guide/">here, or </a> find out if your <a href="https://www.23andme.com/test-info/genetic-health/">genetics</a> might Increase your risk for any health conditions with 23andMe.

The Genetic History of the Samaritans

<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignright size-full wp-image-1249" title="mappinghumanhistory" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/mappinghumanhistory.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="300" />
For more than a century anthropologists have studied the multitude of cultures and ethnicities that exist across the globe, delving deep into the various ways that populations develop their own unique identities.
With the development of genetic anthropology over the last 15 years, scientists have begun to examine whether these cultural identities align with a population’s genetics. How do we as humans differ genetically from one another, and how have these differences arisen throughout our species&#8217; history?
<h6>Discovering the Past Through Our Genes</h6>
This fascinating question is tackled by Steve Olson in Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past through our Genes.
Olson is well suited to explain the complex genetic history of our species. He has worked for the National Academy of Sciences, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and written several books and articles for general audiences on human genetics.
While researching this book he interviewed a large number of anthropological geneticists. He uses his experience in science communication – as well as those interviews – to tell the story of Homo sapiens, beginning in Africa and touching on nearly every major geographical region in the world.

<h6>Starting in Africa</h6>
Olson starts his exploration of our species’ genetic history where it began, in Africa. He begins by describing some of the most isolated and interesting ethnic groups – the so-called Bushmen of southwest Africa and the Kalahari Desert. This well known group of hunter-gatherers has interested anthropologists and geneticists alike for many decades. The Bushmen are relatively isolated, maintaining a hunter-gatherer lifestyle even as many populations around them have taken on new lifestyles. They also speak languages that are famous for their ‘click’ sounds. Belonging to the Khoisan language family, these languages are believed to be some of the most ancient still spoken among humans.
Olson uses examples such as the Bushmen to delve deeper into the science of genetic ancestry. He clearly explains how scientists use DNA to trace both maternal and paternal ancestry, similar to what we at 23andMe do as part of our Personal Genome Service.
<h6>Prehistoric Migrations</h6>
After spending time discussing Africa Olson moves on, tracking our species’ prehistoric movements into the Near East, Asia, Europe, and even the Americas. He also spends time discussing some of the most interesting genetic questions about our species, such as the origins and migrations of the Jews throughout history, and how changes in languages can sometimes be connected to genetic changes.
The final portion of Mapping Human History investigates more closely the cultural and ethnic issues that have arisen over the past ten years because of studies that examine the genetic ancestry of specific populations. Some Native American groups, for example, protest studies such as these because they conflict with their own tribes’ creation stories.
However, Olson argues this research should actually be applauded, because &#8220;the study of genetics has now revealed that we are all linked…. We are members of a single human family, the products of genetic necessity and chance.&#8221;
<h6>Our Genetic Past</h6>
Mapping Human History is, overall, a good foray into our species’ genetic past and how genetics studies can reveal many things – both about how we are different, and how we are the same. Olson peppers his arguments with engaging anecdotes, such as the story of a female researcher in South Africa with mixed heritage, or how the peopling of Hawaii led to such unique genetic diversity among its current inhabitants. These anecdotes would be welcome for any general reader, making the concepts Olson discusses more real and accessible to a general audience.
There are many books that deal with genetic ancestry, and this one does cover many of the same topics as countless others.
But what distinguishes Mapping Human History is its focus on genetic versus cultural and ethnic divisions in our societies. This alternative angle may prove interesting to general audiences with non-science backgrounds, as Olson brings in issues such as race relations and cultural and ethnic diversity that are relevant to many people.
This text would prove an appealing read for 23andMe customers looking to put their own genetic information into a global context. In addition, it would be well-suited for anyone interested in how our species has evolved and expanded over the last few hundred thousand years, and how these past migrations have shaped the ethnic and cultural identities that exist today across the globe.
Mapping Human History: Discovering the Past through our Genes 
Steve Olson 
2002 
New York: Hougton Mifflin Company

Chris Gignoux

Comparing Genetic and Geographic Structure in Europe

Throughout the history of our species there has been one constant:   movement.   Since the origin of Homo sapiens nearly 200,000 years ago in East Africa, humans have journeyed around the globe, ultimately inhabiting every continent save Antarctica. Scientists have traditionally used archaeology, and more recently genetics, to understand the timing and scope of these ancient migrations.   The field of historical linguistics has also been used in the same way,   reasoning that if people migrated to new regions, they would have brought their languages with them.   In this way, linguistics can be used as an additional resource in understanding our species’ past movements. However, this concept is rarely — if ever — that straightforward.   For example, a language might spread from local population to local population, while the original speakers of the language stayed put.   This concept, called ‘cultural diffusion’ is at the core of many debates about our species’ prehistory:   did people (and therefore their genes) migrate to a new region, or was it just a transfer of cultural traits (such as language) from one region to the next?

There are two famous examples in human prehistory that delved deep into this very question.
<h6> Bantu Expansions in sub-Saharan Africa</h6>
 About 5,000 years ago, the majority of sub-Saharan African peoples still relied on hunting, gathering, and foraging as their main source of food.   But some people in west-central Africa were developing new techniques of survival.   They began to experiment with herding and agriculture, cultivating the yams, legumes, peppers, and gourds that would became staples of a sub-Saharan African diet.   Then, about 4,000 years ago, they began to move.   As they traveled over a period of centuries, they both displaced and absorbed groups that were already living throughout Africa.   The languages that they brought with them from their ancestral homeland, belonging to the Bantu family, also spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa.   Today the majority of sub-Saharan African languages are Bantu. What both genetics and linguistics have told us about the Bantu expansions is that it was an expansion of both peoples and cultures.   Though these early Bantu speakers may have intermarried as they expanded,   their genetic signature still shows West African ancestry.   The distribution of Bantu languages throughout sub-Saharan Africa confirms this prehistoric migration.   In fact, this example marks one of the most straightforward instances of a combined genetic and cultural expansion.  
<h6> The Spread of Agriculture and Indo-European Languages</h6>
 Unfortunately, the spread of agriculture from the Near East into Europe and its connection to the spread of Indo-European languages is far more complicated.   Agriculture is believed to have originated in the Near East about 13,000 years ago.   Starting about 10,000 years ago, the archaeological record indicates that the practice expanded westward into Europe. By 9,000 years ago, agriculture existed in Greece.   By 5,000 years ago it had reached Scandinavia. But was this spread of technology accompanied by farmers themselves, as in the Bantu migrations?   Linguists felt they had the answer: the vast majority of languages spoken in Europe today are members of the Indo-European language family.   Languages such as Greek, Latin, Celtic, and English all belong to this group.   In fact, only a few isolated European languages (such as Basque and Finnish) are unrelated.   Linguists argued that the geographical origin for this language family was probably somewhere in the Near East or Caucasus Mountains, and that these languages spread — along with the farmers themselves — into Europe, replacing the older languages that were already in existence.   The archaeology appeared to support this idea, and soon many scholars had argued for an expansion of agriculturalists from the Near East. However, the genetics told a somewhat different story.   Though there are genetic footprints in Europe of these early Near Eastern agriculturalists, there are pre-agricultural genetic footprints as well.   In fact, more Europeans trace their ancestry back to ancient European hunter-gatherers, who survived the harsh Ice Age in the southern fringes of Europe 20,000 years ago, expanding into northern Europe as glaciers receded several thousand years later.   They were not replaced or marginalized by the arrival of agriculturalists. This discordance has made the question of the arrival of agriculture and Indo-European languages in Europe one of the most contentious in the fields of archaeology, genetic anthropology, and linguistics.   It remains unresolved, though many scientists now argue for lower levels of genetic diffusion into Europe than originally thought. There are countless other examples in human prehistory of cultural vs. genetic diffusion, with different disciplines often yielding different hypotheses.   The connection between genetic diffusion and cultural diffusion is anything but straightforward, and the best research will take into account not only genetic and linguistic evidence, but evidence from the archaeology, human skeletal remains, and paleobotany.   As noted scientist and author Jared Diamond has put it, &#8220;It is quite a challenge, but a uniquely fascinating one.&#8221;

Genes and Languages: Not So Strange Bedfellows?

If anybody could turn the history of genetic anthropology into a page-turner, it would be Bryan Sykes. Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, has spent the better of part the last 25 years decoding the mystery of our species’ genetic ancestry through mitochondrial DNA analysis. He recounts his work in his 2001 book, The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science that Reveals our Genetic Ancestry.
But Sykes doesn&#8217;t simply relate the major discoveries in the field. He goes one step further by breathing life into each of the seven major mitochondrial DNA clusters that are common today in European populations.

The Seven Daughters of Eve can be divided into two major parts. In the first, Sykes discusses some of his most fascinating work. He relives how he and his colleagues extracted ancient DNA from the 5,000-year-old Ã–tzi the Iceman, examines his work on understanding the origins of the Polynesians, and tells how he and his team discovered the true fate of Tsar Nicholas II and the Romanovs. With each story, Sykes easily manages to explain the scientific details behind his conclusions in a way that nearly any reader can comprehend.
23andMe customers will be most interested in Sykes&#8217; explanation of how mitochondrial DNA can be used to trace individuals’ maternal ancestry. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is a small segment of circular DNA that is found in tiny organelles called mitochondria. It is believed that hundreds of millions of years ago, mitochondria were free-living bacteria who invaded more advanced cells and never left. Now, they are an integral part to every cell. For people like Bryan Sykes, however – not to mention 23andMe customers who are interested in their ancestry – mitochondria are mostly important for what their DNA can tell us.
Because of the way fertilization takes place, mitochondria (and thus mtDNA) are only passed from mother to child, like a kind of &#8220;matrilineal surname.&#8221; In the same way that surnames can change gradually over generations, so too does mtDNA. So while two siblings are almost certain to have identical mtDNA, people whose most recent common maternal ancestor lived thousands of years in the past are likely to bear substantially different mtDNA signatures.
As it turns out, the different mtDNA patterns found in populations around the world can be organized together into a global family tree. At the tips of the tree are present-day human populations from around the world. At the root of the tree is the common mtDNA ancestor of every human alive today, a real woman who lived in Africa about 175,000 years ago.
As with any family tree, some people are more closely related than others. Scientists have given these more closely related clusters, or ‘haplogroups,’ specifically designated letters. There are seven such haplogroups (and thus, seven letters) among people of European descent – U, K, H, V, X, T, and J.
These seven haplogroups form the basis for the second part of Sykes’ book. As a way of making them seem more personal to the reader, he gives them each a name. For example, haplogroup U becomes Ursula, X become Xenia, H becomes Helena, and so on. These are the so-called &#8220;Seven Daughters of Eve.&#8221;
Sykes uses these names to create stories based on where in Europe the descendants of each &#8220;daughter&#8221; are concentrated. In a chapter on haplogroup K (Katrine), he relates the domestication of wolves. The chapter on haplogroup J (Jasmine) is dedicated to the beginnings of agriculture in the Near East more than 10,000 years ago.
Sykes concludes his journey into our species’ genetic past by explaining why he feels it important to understand genetics from a personal standpoint. He writes, &#8220;I like this kind of genetics because it puts the emphasis back where it belongs: on individuals and their actions.&#8221; There are so many stories hidden in our genes, he reasons, and it is best to tell them to the public in this fashion.
This book is not without flaws. The anecdotes about Sykes&#8217; research in the field are, by definition, centered on how he was the major player in each discovery. As a result, many important players in the field are marginalized or left out completely. In addition, the dramatic benefit of assigning each haplogroup its own story comes at the expense of accuracy and completeness. For example, haplogroup J (Jasmine) is not the only one associated with the origin and spread of agriculture form the Near East to Europe; but in The Seven Daughters of Eve, it is the only one mentioned.
However, simplifying and romanticizing genetic anthropology does make for a good story — which was Sykes’ goal in the first place. Indeed, Sykes has discovered many amazing stories in his years of research at Oxford, and The Seven Daughters of Eve proves to be an engaging journey that can be enjoyed by general audiences and genetic ancestry enthusiasts.
The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science that Reveals our Genetic Ancestry 
Bryan Sykes 
2001 
New York: W.W. Norton &amp; Co.
&nbsp;

The Genetic and Geographic Structure in Europe

By Brenna Henn
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-750" style="border: 0pt none;" title="maasihut_sat" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/maasihut_sat.jpg" alt="" width="314" height="234" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/maasihut_sat.jpg 350w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/maasihut_sat-300x225.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 314px) 100vw, 314px" />A Nilotic-speaking pastoralist from Tanzania / Sarah A. Tishkoff
Genes are just one component that children inherit from their parents. Throughout much of human history, especially when populations consisted of small hunter-gatherer groups, the language and lifestyle of a people were also inherited from generation to generation.
This is why genetic patterns and cultural traits are often correlated. So, when scientists see cultural similarities between two populations, they can ask whether there are genetic similarities between the two groups as well.
For many cultural traits, such as pastoralism and agriculture there is still a debate: did people actually migrate into new regions, bringing their genes and culture with them, or did the language and lifestyle simply spread by word of mouth to new lands?
<h6>Pastoralism</h6>
In this week&#8217;s <a href="https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.0801184105" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</a>, scientists from Stanford University (several of whom are also associated with 23andMe, including myself) have used the principle of genetic and cultural exchange to find the first genetic evidence of a prehistoric migration of people from Tanzania to southern Africa. We discovered a mutation (aka &#8216;SNP&#8217;) on the Y-chromosome that originated about 10,000 years ago in eastern Africa and is now most common among people from two regions: Tanzania and southern Africa.
Pastoralists (people who rely heavily on animal husbandry for food) such as the Datog and Burunge of northern Tanzania carry the newly discovered SNP. In fact, it is present among 30-40% of men from these populations. Unexpectedly, the click-speaking Kxoe of southern Africa carry the same SNP at similar levels to the Tanzanian populations, indicating that these people are closely related to the Tanzanian pastoralists. The evidence indicates that men from southern and eastern Africa shared very recent common ancestors between about 1,200 and 2,700 years ago.
<h6>Genetic Exchange</h6>
With this genetic evidence in hand, we then turned to archaeologists to see if the fossil record indicated an ancient migration around this time.
As it turns out, the current thinking among archaeologists is slightly different than what this new genetic evidence has revealed. Archaeologists currently favor a model in which the cultural practice of pastoralism spread from an unknown eastern African group into southern Africa about 2,000 years ago, perhaps without any sort of movement of people (i.e. genetic exchange).
Our new genetic study<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-full wp-image-751 alignright" title="donkeycart" src="https://blog-api.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/donkeycart.jpg" alt="" width="268" height="400" srcset="https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/donkeycart.jpg 350w, https://blogcms.23andme.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/donkeycart-200x300.jpg 200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 268px) 100vw, 268px" />, while still supporting the archaeological record for the timing and place of the origins of pastoralism in sub-Saharan Africa, puts a new twist on the current thinking. It suggests that a small group of men actually migrated into southern Africa about 2,000 years ago. These men probably married into local hunter-gatherer populations, contributing their livestock and cultural knowledge of pastoralism. These migrants were probably closely related to the modern day Datog and Burunge groups of Tanzania.
<h6>Nama of Nambia</h6>
A shift to pastoralism was a fundamental change for the hunter-gatherers of southern Africa during the last couple thousand years. It caused a dramatic change in the culture and belief systems of these people. As pastoralism became more widespread in southern Africa, so did the beginnings of a sense of ownership of animals and the emergence of chieftans.
These changes can still be seen today in the practices of people throughout Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. For example, the Nama of Namibia began practicing pastoralism not long after its arrival in southern Africa and continue to do so today.
The question of whether the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture was the result of cultural exchange or actual migrations between groups is one of the most important debates among archaeologists and geneticists. With this new genetic evidence, we think we have answered this question, at least in southern Africa.
Future studies will further examine the relationhip between genes and culture, and how this relationship has influenced the genetic and cultural makeup of modern African populations.
&nbsp;
 Brenna Henn is a doctoral student in Stanford University&#8217;s Department of Anthropology and a 23andMe consultant. Brenna studies human evolution using genetic information. Her interests include the origin of modern humans, migration patterns among African groups, and genetic models of demography.

Ancestry Service — Page 30

Roots Television: The Internet TV Channel for Genealogists

Who Built the Terracotta Army? The Genetic Origins of the Qin Dynasty Mausoleum Workers

The Genetic History of the Samaritans

Recommended Reading: Mapping Human History

Comparing Genetic and Geographic Structure in Europe

Genes and Languages: Not So Strange Bedfellows?

Recommended Reading: “The Seven Daughters of Eve”

The Genetic and Geographic Structure in Europe

The Origins of Pastoralism in Africa: What do the Genes Say

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