In the press: Ukraine, 24,000 years ago (04/29/01)

In the press: Ukraine, 24,000 years ago

PARSIPPANY, N.J. - A recent study shows that four out of five Europeans arose about 40,000 years ago from primitive hunters who endured the long ice age and then spread throughout the continent.

To fully comprehend this study one must go back even farther in history. Research has shown that modern humans arose in Africa some 100,000 years ago. From there some migrated eastward, others crossed the land bridge into the Middle East, while yet another group went west and arrived in Europe.

A study by Peter Underhill, a senior researcher at the Stanford Genome Technology Center, reveals that 24,000 years ago, when the last ice age began, huge glaciers moved across Europe, causing Paleolithic Europeans to seek refuge in what is now Spain, the Balkans and Ukraine. Then 16,000 years ago, when the glaciers finally melted, the Paleolithic tribes settled throughout the rest of the continent.

This information, published in the journal Science, comes from an analysis of the Y chromosomes taken from 1,007 men living in 25 different European locations by researchers from Stanford and Europe. The rare changes in the Y chromosome created a pattern that can be traced back hundreds of generations and thus help to plot the movement of ancient humans.

The Y chromosome is inherited only by sons from their fathers. A sperm carrying the Y chromosome will cause the fertilized egg to be male, whereas the X chromosome makes the fertilized egg female.

According to Mr. Underhill, Y chromosome mutations occurred among people in each of the ice age refugees and his research shows that the pattern that developed in Spain is now most common in northwest Europe, Ukraine's is most common in Eastern Europe, and the Balkan pattern in Central Europe.

Finally, some 8,000 years ago, the more advanced Neolithic people migrated to Europe from the Middle East with a new Y chromosome and a new agrarian lifestyle. The remaining 20 percent of Europeans have this type of Y chromosome.

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