01/04/07

Our appreciation to Gilles Long who has undertaken this project on all of our behalfs ...

Until recently, the story of our family could legitimately start with the history of our surname. We could then speculate about the origins of our ancestor, his real age and ethnic origins and have no fear that our speculations might represent the best guesses ever reached based on combinations of oral history and historical analysis.

However, Gilles Long, through the “miracle” of DNA analysis, has created a whole new area of historical analysis for descendants of Philip Long. What is described as “deep ancestry” is now possible through the analysis of the Y chromosomes that are passed through every male generation for the last hundreds of thousands of years! It is a fascinating and growing area of genealogy and we are making this information available more fully on the website. Gilles is continuing his work and the tests, on all of our behalfs, to try to reach more definitive conclusions about our more recent “ancestry”, that is, approximately 500 years ago rather than what we can report here which is much further in the past.

However, here are the current high level conclusions that are possible based on DNA analysis:

• Our earliest ancestor is considered to be M168, a Homo Sapiens that emerged out of Africa likely around 50,000 years ago. Our earliest ancestor would have moved to Eurasia as a result of the temporary retreat of the Ice Age leading to warmer and more humid climates. From the Genographic Project we learn that “The man who gave rise to the first genetic market in your lineage probably lived in northeast Africa in the region of the rift Valley, perhaps in present-day Ethipia, Kenya, or Tanzania, some 31,000 to 70,000 years ago. Scientists put the most likely date when he lived at around 50,000 years ago. His descendants became the only lineage to survive outside of Africa, making him the common ancestor of every non-African man living today.”

• Later, our ancestor gave rise to another man with the marker M170 who appears at this time to be our most recent ancestor – at least based on the state of the research as it exists today. His place of origin was likely Southeastern Europe and arrived at the height of the Ice Age. His tools and skills would place him directly in the “Gravettian culture of the Upper Paleolithic”. From the Genegraphic Project we learn that

“Your ancestors were part of the M89 Middle Eastern Clan that continued to migrate northwest into the Balkans and eventually spread into central Europe. These people may have been responsible for the expansion fo the prosperous Gravettian culture, which spread through northern Europe from about 21,000 to 28,000 years ago.

The Gravettian culture represents the second technological phase to sweep through prehistoric western Europe. It is named afte a site in La Gravette (Dordogne Region), France, where a set of tools different from the preceding era (Aurignacian culture) was found. The Gravettian stone tool kit included a distinctive small pointed blade used for hundtin big game.

Figure 1 - Cave Art Nouveau and Figurine from La Gravette, France. Source: Wikipedia
The Gravettian culture is also known for their voluptuous carvings of big-bellied females often dubbed “Venus” figures. The small, frequently hand-sized sculptures appear to be of pregnant women obesity not being a problem for hunter-gatherers and may have served as fertility icons or as emblems conferring protection of some sort. Alternatively, they may have represented goddesses.

These early European ancestors of yours used communal hunting techniques, created shell jewelry, and used mammoth bones to build their homes. Recent findings suggest that the Gravettians may have discovered how to weave clothing using natural fibers as early 25,000 years ago. Earlier estimates had placed weaving at about the same time as the emergence of agriculture, around 10,000 years ago.

Your most recent common ancestor, the man who gave rise to market M170, was born about 20,000 years ago and was heir to this heritage. He was probably born in one of the isolated refuge areas people were forced to occupy during the last blast of the Ice Age, possibly in the Balkans. As the ice sheets covering much of Europe began to retreat around 15,000 years ago, his descendants likely played a central role in recolonizing northern Europe.

It’s possible the Vikings descended from this line. The Viking raids on the British Isles might explain why the lineage can be ound in populations in souther France and amon some Celtic populations”

Source: Gilles Long (2006) – Participant in the National Geographic – IBM “Genographic Project”.

Figure 2 - Genographic Map - Haplogroup I (M170) - Our "Deep" Ancestor - Source: Gilles Long