Jovana V. Jovanovikj
Ancestry
Ancestry Composition
I was eagerly waiting for the results of my ancestry composition result for several weeks. The overall result was not surprising at all. I am diehard Balkan inhabitant, and my family has remained on the peninsula at least since the end of the last ice age (some 10,000 years ago). In the meantime, emperors came and vanished, conquerors ravished and vanquished, civilizations prospered and disappeared, but my folks, while silently observing all these tectonic changes happening around them, persevered in these lands and never left. Quite a stubborn bunch my family, isn’t it? In the world the Balkans symbolizes endless civil wars, ethnic strife, carnages, political unrest, and poverty (the backyard of Europe). However, for my family obviously the Balkans is the paradise on Earth. And they are right! My Balkans is the cradle of the Western civilization, the birthplace of Democracy, a place where humanity discovered the pleasures of life (like wine, vacations and sandy beaches, theater, dance, music, and so on), and the best climate in the world (where you can experience everything, scorching summer and freezing winters). Despite our reputation, for millennia various cultures, languages, ethnicities, and religions peacefully coexisted on the Balkans, way before all other cultures and regions in the world discovered multiculturalism. So, yes, as expected, I am 100% Balkanian!
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However, the results of the actual geographic distribution of my ancestry were unexpected and full of surprises. Apparently, my strongest genetic traits come from the Peloponnese. Also, there are strong traits from Dalmatia, the pearl of the Adriatic. Why is this unexpected? Well, there is not a single mention in my family lore about anybody coming from these beautiful regions. Also, at least in the last 200 years I have no recorded ancestor coming from the Peloponnese or Dalmatia. But the results prove what’s behind my infatuation with ancient Greek mythology. Apparently, my ancestry goes straight to Mount Olympus. The rest was predictable ...
Maternal Haplogroup
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Before returning back to hard science, let’s remind ourselves that the humanity was born in the savannah where the animated Disney movie “Lion King” was filmed. A joke, of course. My maternal haplogroup is K1a4c. Yes, it looks like strong password suggestion from the LastPass. So, let me give you the shortest possible crash course in maternal haplogroups (for more information, please study biology, or genetics … or medicine).
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East Africa was the birthplace of Homo Sapiens and its predecessors the hominids. The first known maternal haplogroup of the Homo Sapiens species (a.k.a. modern humans) is L. That woman is quite famous because she gave birth to the whole humanity (something like the biblical Eve or the ancient Greek goddess Gaia and also her nickname is the mitochondrial Eve). Our good ol’ grandma lived around 150,000 to 200,000 years ago in present-day Kenya (I am still wondering if I can apply for a Kenyan or Tanzanian passport based on the birthplace of my great – greatx – grandma). To fast-forward a bit, our next famous grandmas were L3, N, R and U (the scientists were not very creative in naming our common grandmothers and they could have given them nicknames like Lucinda, Nora, Rosalind, and Ursula) and they migrated across the Red Sea (probably starting the snorkeling frenzy). Finally, we come to the grandma K. She most probably lived somewhere in the Middle East, and her grandchildren can be found all over Europe, North Africa, Middle East, and Central Asia. One of her descendants, grandma K1a, and her children moved to Europe, spreading not just the biological traits, but also the earliest technological advances. They brought the Neolithic Revolution to this new continent, including agriculture, husbandry, and sedentary life. My specific haplogroup K1a4c hasn’t changed for the last 420 generation, really proving that my family is quite stubborn. Grandma K1a4c lived approximately 10,500 years ago, initiating a long line of strong Balkan women, capable of withstanding their headstrong Balkan men. Until now, K1a4c haplogroup is one of the rarest haplogroups among the “23 & Me” customers, probably because not a lot of persons from the Balkans have been tested (1:110,000).
Neanderthal DNA
My father claims that I don’t have proper manners and that I resemble the wild barbarians who destroyed the civilized life of many cultures throughout history (like when wild Alaric destroyed civilized Rome). Well, he is kind of right … My DNA contains 250 variants that trace back to Neanderthals. Maybe this is the “civilized” part of my DNA and the Homo Sapiens is the wild one, who knows? Furthermore, the Neanderthal DNA accounts for less than 2% of my human DNA, but I have 67% more Neanderthal DNA than the other customers of “23&Me”. So, my strange traits like the difficulty to discard rarely used possessions, bad sense of direction, lack of fear of heights, being a better sprinter than a distance runner, and having more dandruff in the hair, come from these Neanderthal variants in my DNA. Blame it on the Neanderthals!