My maternal lineage began about 150,000 years ago.
My maternal ancestors journeyed from Africa to Asia, settling in the region of southern China. There they were among the first people to develop rice agriculture. This event led to a population explosion, and my ancestors expanded throughout the region. Some of my cousins went north into Japan, while others traveled south, with some eventually heading out to sea in the great Polynesian migrations.
My maternal branch is M7c1b2b
HEATMAP FOR M7
BRANCH: L3
AGE: 67,000 YEARS AGO
LOCATION OF ORIGIN: EAST AFRICA
This woman’s descendants would eventually account for both out-of-Africa maternal lineages, significant population migrations in Africa, and even take part in the Atlantic Slave Trade related dispersals from Africa.
The common direct maternal ancestor to all women alive today was born in East Africa around 180,000 years ago. Dubbed “Mitochondrial Eve” by the popular press, she represents the root of the human family tree. Eve gave rise to two descendant lineages known as L0 and L1’2’3’4’5’6, characterized by a different set of genetic mutations their members carry.
Current genetic data indicates that indigenous people belonging to these groups are found exclusively in Africa. This means that, because all humans have a common female ancestor, and because the genetic data shows that Africans are the oldest groups on the planet, we know our species originated there.
Eventually, L1’2’3’4’5’6 gave rise to L3 in East Africa. It is a similar story: an individual underwent a mutation to her mitochondrial DNA, which was passed onto her children. The children were successful, and their descendants ultimately broke away from L1’2’3’4’5’6, eventually separating into a new group called L3.
While L3 individuals are found all over Africa, L3 is important for its movements north. Your L3 ancestors were significant because they are the first modern humans to have left Africa, representing the deepest branches of the tree found outside of that continent.
From there, members of this group went in a few different directions. Many stayed on in Africa, dispersing to the west and south. Some L3 lineages are predominant in many Bantu-speaking groups who originated in west-central Africa, later dispersing throughout the continent and spreading this L3 lineage from Mali to South Africa. Today, L3 is also found in many African-Americans.
Other L3 individuals, your ancestors, kept moving northward, eventually leaving the African continent completely. These people gave rise to two important macro-haplogroups (M and N) that went on to populate the rest of the world.
Why would humans have first ventured out of the familiar African hunting grounds and into unexplored lands? It is likely that a fluctuation in climate may have provided the impetus for your ancestors’ exodus out of Africa.
The African Ice Age was characterized by drought rather than by cold. Around 50,000 years ago the ice sheets of northern Europe began to melt, introducing a period of warmer temperatures and moister climate in Africa. Parts of the inhospitable Sahara briefly became habitable. As the drought-ridden desert changed to savanna, the animals your ancestors hunted expanded their range and began moving through the newly emerging green corridor of grasslands. Your nomadic ancestors followed the good weather and plentiful game northward across this Saharan Gateway, although the exact route they followed remains to be determined.
BRANCH: M
AGE: ABOUT 50,000 YEARS AGO
LOCATION OF ORIGIN: ASIA OR AFRICA
Your next signpost ancestor is the woman whose descendants formed haplogroup M. Haplogroup M comprises one of two groups that were created from L3.
One of these two groups, haplogroup N, moved north out of Africa and left the continent across the Sinai Peninsula, in present-day Egypt. Faced with the harsh desert conditions of the Sahara, their ancestors likely followed the Nile basin, which would have proved a reliable water and food supply in spite of the surrounding desert and its frequent sandstorms. The ancient members of haplogroup N spawned many sub-lineages that went on to populate much of the rest of the globe. They are found throughout Asia, Europe, India, and the Americas.
Your haplogroup, M, constitutes the other group that split off from L3, and gave rise to the first wave of modern humans to make a successful exodus from Africa. These people likely left the continent across the Horn of Africa, where a narrow span of water between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden separates the East African coastline from the Arabian Peninsula at Bab-el-Mandeb. The short ten miles would have been easily navigable for humans possessing early maritime technologies. This crossing constituted the start of a long coastal migration eastward across the Middle East and southern Eurasia, eventually reaching all the way to Australia and Polynesia.
Haplogroup M is considered an east Eurasian lineage, as it is found at high frequencies east of the Arabian Peninsula. Members of this group are virtually absent in the Levant (a coastal region in what is now Lebanon), though they are present at higher frequencies in the south-Arabian Peninsula at around 15 percent. Because its age is estimated to be around 50,000 years, members of this group were likely among the first humans to leave Africa, and they likely did it heading east. Haplogroup M is found in East Africa, though at much lower frequencies than its subgroup M1. It gives the appearance of a more recent age in eastern Africa than in Asia which is likely the result of smaller populations in Africa, which would have reduced genetic diversity and would therefore appear more recent.
Your haplogroup is prevalent among populations living in the southern parts of Pakistan and northwest India, where it constitutes around 30 to 50 percent of the mitochondrial gene pool, depending on the population. Conversely, the M haplogroup is absent or rarely found amongst people living west of the Indus Valley, and is found at low frequencies in the Central Asian populations, around 10 to 15 percent. The wide distribution and greater genetic diversity east of Indus Valley indicates that these haplogroup M-bearing individuals are the legacy of the first inhabitants of southwestern Asia. These people underwent important expansions during the Paleolithic, and the fact that some East Asian haplogroup M lineages match those found in Central Asia indicates much more recent (i.e., not founder) mixture into the area from the east.
Haplogroup M has several sub-branches which exhibit some geographic specificity. Subgroup M1 is found at high frequency in East Africa, at around 20 percent in many populations. Because haplogroup M itself is almost entirely absent from the region, M1 individuals likely represent migrations back into the continent from the Arabian Peninsula after people had left Africa. M2-M6 are characteristic Indian sub-groups. Haplogroup M7 is distributed across the southern part of East Asia, and two of its own daughter-groups, M7a and M7b2, are representative of Japanese and Korean populations, respectively. M7 individuals reach frequency in southern China and Japan of around 15 percent, and are found at lower frequencies in Mongolia. The old age of this branch indicates a pre-Jomon contribution to the mitochondrial gene pool in those areas.
BRANCH: M7
AGE: 54,800 ± 13,400 YEARS AGO
LOCATION OF ORIGIN: EAST ASIA
Traveling along the coast, groups containing women from this lineage settled across modern-day China. Some ventured to the coastal islands. They settled in Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines.
Note: This branch is not accompanied by a major movement on the map, and research on this branch is continuing.
Here is my maternal genetic history from the first phase of the GenoGraphic Project.
Here is my paternal genetic history from Geno 2.0.
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