Most European men are descended from three Bronze Age forefathers say scientists
This article originally appeared on Culture24.
Study shows that almost two out of three (64%) modern European men belong to just three Bronze Age forebears
Could someone like the Bronze Age Racton Man be the forebear of 64% of European males?© Courtesy The NoviumThe research, funded by the Wellcome Trust and led by Professor Mark Jobling from the University of Leicester’s Department of Genetics, found that a population explosion several thousand years ago could mean a handful of dominant Bronze Age males are responsible for many of the Y chromosomes found in men today.
The Y chromosome is passed exclusively from fathers to sons and the Leicester team used new methods for analysing DNA variation to determine the DNA sequences of 334 men from 17 European and Middle Eastern populations.
Constructing a genealogical tree of European Y chromosomes, they found that three very young branches whose shapes indicate recent expansions, account for the Y chromosomes of 64% of the men studied.
Previous research has focused on the proportion of modern Europeans descending from Paleolithic, Old Stone Age, hunter-gatherer populations or more recent Neolithic farmers, reflecting a transition that began about 10,000 years ago. But the new study points to more recent changes between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago.
The Bronze Age, which in Europe has its roots in the Agean around 3,200 BC, was characterised by the smelting of copper, tin and other metals and the beginnings of writing and organised warfare. In Britain, the Bronze Age is generally accepted to have lasted between 2,100 and 750 BC.
Professor Jobling said his team’s findings, which have been published in the journal Nature Communications, revealed a population expansion that “falls within the Bronze Age, which involved changes in burial practices, the spread of horse-riding and developments in weaponry”.
“Dominant males linked with these cultures could be responsible for the Y chromosome patterns we see today,” he added.
The growth in the male population size is thought to have been marked in European societies from the British Isles to the Balkans. The findings contrast with previous research, which has focused on the proportion of modern Europeans descending from Paleolithic - Old Stone Age - hunter-gatherer populations or more recent Neolithic farmers about 10,000 years ago.
Chiara Batini from the University of Leicester’s Department of Genetics, lead author of the study, added: “Given the cultural complexity of the Bronze Age, it’s difficult to link a particular event to the population growth that we infer.
“But Y-chromosome DNA sequences from skeletal remains are becoming available, and this will help us to understand what happened, and when.”
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