#1 Bantu Africa and the Niger-Congo Areas 33.2%

Origin: Peaks in Nigeria and declines in Senegal, Gambia, and Kenya

#2 West Africa 18.9%

Origin: Peaks in Senegal and Gambia and declines in Algeria and Mororrco

#3 Madagascar 14.9%

Origin: Peaks in Madagascar with residues in South Africa

#4 African Pygmies 8.1%

Origin: Associated with the Pygmy people (Pygmy means short and is assoicated with people) not places.

#5 Nile Valley Peoples 6.7%

Origin: Peaks in Western Ethiopia and south Sudan

#6 Northwestern Africa 6.3%

Origin: Peaks in Algeria and declines in Morocco and Tunisia

#7 Tuva 5.3%

Origin: Peaks in south Siberia (Russians: Tuvinian) and declines in North Mongolia

#8 Western Siberia 3.5%

Origin: Peaks in Krasnoyarsk Krai and declines towards east Russia

#9 Northern Mongolia and Eastern Siberia 2%

Origin: Peaks in North Mongolia and declines in Siberia

#10 Southern Ethiopia 1.1%

Origin: Localized to South Ethiopia

The questions of who we are and where we come from have been asked for throughout our history. Once we explained our origins with mythology and folklore but now we utilize modern science to answer them.

Genetics help us tell the story of our origins from the beginning, through the formation of the human gene pools and to the last 2000 years of history.

The test results you have just received, along with the following information, will help you understand your personal story, from the shared history of all humans to your unique family story.

 

From Sea to Land: Our Shared History

Our origins lie far beyond the first appearance of humans, with an evolutionary story common to many forms of life on earth. About 360 million years ago fish-like creatures ventured out of the Devonian Sea and became the first reptiles. After hundreds of millions years of evolution the mammals emerged after the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago thrust them into the evolutionary spotlight, and allowed them to expand into the world the dinosaurs left vacant.

 

Our human story really begins with the origin of primates, which split away from the other mammalian groups between 65 and 80 million years ago. It would be at least another 60 million years before the appearance of the species Ardipithecus, an ape that evolved from the Old World Monkeys and is regarded as the first fossil human ancestor.

 

Fossil finds from Ardipithecus in Ethiopia date it to between 4 and 6 million years ago.12 This species could walk on two legs like humans but shared other characteristics with chimpanzees. Ardipithecus further developed into a number of lineages found throughout East Africa and South Africa that are known as the Australopithecines.13

 

Over the next 3 million years, many Australopithecine species appeared in Africa but they evolved little; their brains remained roughly the same size as those of chimpanzees and they did not use tools. Around 3 million years ago, the subspecies Homo habilis14 began using stone tools, and by 1.5 million years ago the fire-mastering Homo erectus appeared. Fossils reveal that Homo erectus had a much bigger brain than its Australopithecine ancestors. This subspecies began spreading across much of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, while the Australopithecines began to disappear.15

 

Next, a new human subspecies, the Neanderthals, appeared. They evolved from a Homo erectus relative outside of Africa and had spread widely throughout Europe and the Middle East  500,000 years ago.16 Neanderthals had stocky builds and thick limbs and were specially adapted to the Ice Age conditions. There is evidence that Neanderthals buried their dead, a practice once thought exclusive to modern humans,17,18 which raises questions about the nature of the Neanderthal’s genetic contribution to modern humans.19

 

Africa: The First Modern Humans

It is thought that the ancestor of modern humans is one of the Homo erectus relatives, which appeared in East Africa sometime between 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.

 

Many different ancient human species also evolved outside Africa, and persisted for more than a million years of geologic time. Their fossils have been unearthed in Europe, Southeast Asia, and China. Yet this diversity had all but disappeared by 100,000 years ago, and human fossils became remarkably uniform across the globe.23

 

The theory that has become known as the Out of Africa model began with a study in the late 1980s, investigating small changes in the DNA carried by the mitochondria - the DNA passed down by the mother.24 The study analyzed DNA changes in the mitochondrial genome, and surmised that all humans diverged from a single ancestor living 200,000 years ago in Africa. While this does not indicate that there was just one mother, or ‘African Eve’, for all humanity, the results suggested that all humans alive today descended from a single population residing in Africa more recently than any of the previously mentioned early human species.

 

The Out of Africa model has also been applied to research on the Y chromosome.25,26 This chromosome is found only in male lineages and passed down through the generations, unchanged for the most part. A recent study estimates that the ‘African Adam’ lived 208,000 years ago27.

 

Beyond Africa: Colonizing the Continents

Mitochondrial and Y chromosomal DNA have been our primary tools for deciphering the human story because each person receives only one copy from each parent. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down from the mother and Y chromosomal DNA from the father, allowing scientists to track the ancestry of both the maternal and paternal lines. Perhaps one of the most interesting stories told by the mitochondrial and Y chromosomal DNA is how humans colonized the world.

 

The earliest human migrants appear to have reached Southern China some 80,000 years ago28, and DNA studies suggest they may have interbred with Neanderthals on their way through the Middle East.29 They then spread to the rest of Asia along a route that probably tracks south of the Himalayas and into East Asia between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago,30 possibly interbreeding with another subspecies known as the Denisovians.31

 

Archaeological and genetic evidence indicate that modern humans crossed the ocean from Southeast Asia and reached the islands near the tropical Pacific area of Oceania as far back as 50,000 years ago, probably in small water craft.32 At the same time, populations spread to Europe through Turkey and into Central Asia. Some of these Central Asian migrants subsequently moved westward from the Ural Mountains and may be represented today by the peoples of Northern Europe and of the Baltic region, such as the Sami people.

 

Climate and geography delayed further migrations of modern humans into other areas of the world. Much of northern Eurasia was extremely cold during the last Ice Age (11,000 to 12,000 years ago) and human populations remained small and isolated. A small group of people from Siberia, however, managed to reach North America around 18,000 years ago33 by way of a land bridge that existed when sea levels were lower. They moved south, and by 15,000 years ago, began to populate South America.

 

There were several more migratory waves to the Americas with the most recent being the Inuit, who colonized the Arctic of North America between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago.

 

Asian migration also continued eastwards to Oceania. The large islands of Oceania that are closest to Asia have been inhabited for at least 30,000 years, while the most isolated islands of Northeastern Oceania remained uninhabited until just 3,500 years ago.34,35 The people who made the first voyages into this region were Austronesians, a group that emigrated from an area around present day Taiwan and are today known as Polynesians.

 

But as the last Ice Age came to an end and the climate warmed, a human cultural revolution was about to start, and it began in the Middle East.

 

Agriculture and the Growth of Civilization

The transition from hunter-gathering to farming occurred in the Middle East between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago,36 and between 9,000 and 10,000 years ago in China37 and parts of the Americas.38,39 By 5,000 years ago agriculture had facilitated the rise of some of the first large civilizations such as Mesopotamia in West Asia,40 the Maya in Central America,41 and the earliest Chinese civilizations along the Yangtze.42

 

Early farming cultures then expanded into new areas. Farmers from the Middle East brought agriculture to Europe and rice farming travelled with groups across East Asia. This expansion was accompanied by a genetic reshuffling as different groups came into contact and reproduced. Such reshuffling has been a continuous process over the last 10,000 years.

 

Genetic research has played a key role in understanding the migrations that took place during this period. Mitochondrial DNA lineages have been used to confirm and enhance archaeological interpretations such as tracing the ancestry of Norse and Gaelic populations, and Y chromosomal studies have been used to track male lineages in studies of Oceania.

 

Genetic Origins (Gene Pools): The Key to Identifying Your Ancestral Communities

As humans traversed the globe and colonized different continents each group accumulated small differences in their DNA. Most of these differences or mutations occurred in the X chromosome and autosomal chromosomes that are inherited from both parents and allows us to follow the specific journeys made by each human group.

 

Some genetic roads diverged, not meeting again until modern times, while others led back to one another as genetically distinct groups. The accumulations of mutations in people from different areas of the world are what allow us today to distinguish different groups from one another.

 

DNA mutations may have been enhanced by the custom of marrying within an tribe, class, or social group, creating a group of people who were more similar to one another genetically than they were to their ancestors and neighboring groups - in other words, creating a new gene pool or genetic origin..

 

It is difficult to know exactly how many gene pools there are because every geneltic origin includes “gene puddles” where small, isolated groups of people married only within their local group, acquiring and maintaining unique mutations over time. At this time, scientists have identified about forty gene pools from all over the world. Over time, some of these gene pools spilled toward? each other, particularly those in Eurasia, whereas other pools remained more constant.

 

Recent History and the Genetic Melting Pot

As ancient peoples traded, conquered, enslaved and fell in love, they spread their genes, along with their unique mutations, across larger areas at an increasingly rapid pace, interweaving previously distinct parts of the original gene pools. If, in the past, human groups diverged from one another and became genetically distinct, recent history has been characterized by populations coming together creating new genetic tapestries out of the original genetic origin. Today, every one of us is the product of these historical genetic exchanges: it is extremely rare to find individuals whose DNA belongs to a single gene pool.

 

Because the X and autosomal chromosomes contain the accumulated mutations that correspond with different gene pools, they provides a more nuanced picture of historical interactions in the past. Your genetic origin results will show you how your genome is linked to the human story of the populations who lived 60,000-15,000 years ago.

 

Empires, Pandemic and More Migration: Your Story in the Modern World

The past 2,000 years of human history have seen the rise and fall of empires that spanned entire continents, such as the Persian, Roman, Mongol, Arab Caliphate and most recently, the British Empire.

 

The expansion of European empires brought European DNA to many different parts of the world such as Australia, Asia and particularly the Americas, where the intermingling of Europeans and native tribes has led to many central and south Americans having mixed ancestry.

 

Pandemics, such as the Black Death in Europe and smallpox in the Americas caused widespread devastation. Conquests by Viking raiders reshaped entire cultures and identities. All of these events have left their mark in the DNA of present-day populations.

Countries such as the United States, which have experienced large waves of migration from different areas in the last two hundred years have facilitated the further mixing of many different gene pools.

 

Between the 17th and 19th centuries the slave trade brought up to 650,000 Africans to the United States. They were joined by 4.5 million Irish people who escaped famine and poverty between 1820 and 1930, Other groups to enter the United States between the mid-19th and early 20th centuries include about 5 million Germans, over 2 million European jews, 4 million Italians and up to 300,000 Chinese.

Consequently, these migrations merged gene pools that had, thus far, remained largely separate due to geographical barriers. Many Americans and British now share genetic origins with up to a dozen different gene pools, some of which have diverged more than 60,000 years ago, such as the European and Native American gene pools.

 

Your GPS Origins results reveal your genetic origins and the journey your DNA has made with end-points recorded each time the DNA has markedly changed through intermarriages.

 

For example, if you have Scottish ancestry your results could show that you are descended from the Viking ancestors who arrived in the Medieval era, but did not mix with Scots and retained their Danish origin. If you are African American, you may learn about connections to the Bantu peoples and the pre-colonial trading kingdoms in West Africa. If you are an Ashkenazic Jew, GPS Origins may trace your origin to the ancient Ashkenaz in northeastern Turkey.

 

Ongoing genetic research of archaeological remains could mean that, in the future, you may be able to match your background with a range of individuals - whether that is an ancient Mayan King found in a temple complex in Guatemala, a warrior from a Viking boat burial or a flint-knapping craftsman from Mesolithic Germany. The human story, as told through our genes, is only beginning.

Now, you are ready to see your results.

Out of Africa Story References: