ADDENDUM to last post:
what I meant to say...

1 HOT LINK

And that would be the one, the only,
The Angry Czeck.

Truly, I apologize to your angered pagan gods by
not listing you in the last post of HOT LINKS.

But let's be honest.
Doesn't everyone just assume you to be
The Alpha-Omega Ruthless Village Plundering
Number One HOT LINK?

That's what I thought, too.

Good news, because either you care or are being held captive
by the mob and forced into reading this as torture,
I'm in Haplogroup H:

According to my yummy mouth-swabbings
and the Genographic Project,
where did my fuzzy ancestors originate?

First off, they began with everyone's mom,
the Mitochondrial Eve way down in Africa 150,000 years ago.
Then they migrated up to Asia, got cold and moved.

Even though that sounds familiar,
I suspect migration by excommunication.

They did the classic move, my favorite,
"Eh... you guys go ahead, we're going back to the beach.
We'll catch up with you, yeah, we'll write. No, really."

So they hit the road for *warmer climates*
and spread far and wide to the likes of:
Scotland
France
Kashmir
Saudi Arabia
Algeria
and
the Czech Republic.

Ok. Sounds right to me.
They say a large percentage of the Haplo H types
were found to trace back and originate in Asia.

That accounts for at least seven of the
personality struggles living deep within me.

The rest are past lives.
I may have to start charging them rent.
In that case:
I'm rich, I tell you, rich.


+++

Haplogroup H: Your Branch on the Tree

Ancestral line: "Eve" > L1/L0 > L2 > L3 > N > R > pre-HV > HV > H

This wave of migration into western Europe marked the appearance and spread of what archaeologists call the Aurignacian culture. The culture is distinguished by significant innovations in methods of manufacturing tools, standardization of tools, and use of a broader set of tool types, such as end-scrapers for preparing animal skins and tools for woodworking.

Around 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, colder temperatures and a drier global climate locked much of the world's fresh water at the polar ice caps, making living conditions near impossible for much of the northern hemisphere. Early Europeans retreated to the warmer climates of the Iberian Peninsula, Italy, and the Balkans, where they waited out the cold spell. Their population sizes were drastically reduced, and much of the genetic diversity that had previously existed in Europe was lost.

Beginning about 15,000 years ago—after the ice sheets had begun their retreat—humans moved north again and recolonized western Europe. By far the most frequent mitochondrial lineage carried by these expanding groups was haplogroup H. Because of the population growth that quickly followed this expansion, your haplogroup now dominates the European female landscape.

Today haplogroup H comprises 40 to 60 percent of the gene pool of most European populations. In Rome and Athens, for example, the frequency of H is around 40 percent of the entire population, and it exhibits similar frequencies throughout western Europe. Moving eastward the frequencies of H gradually decreases, clearly illustrating the migratory path these settlers followed as they left the Iberian Peninsula after the ice sheets had receded. Haplogroup H is found at around 25 percent in Turkey and around 20 percent in the Caucasus Mountains.

While haplogroup H is considered the Western European lineage due to its high frequency there, it is also found much further east. Today it comprises around 20 percent of southwest Asian lineages, about 15 percent of people living in Central Asia, and around five percent
in northern Asia.

Importantly, the age of haplogroup H lineages differs quite substantially between those seen in the West compared with those found in the East. In Europe its age is estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 years old, and while H made it into Europe substantially earlier (30,000 years ago), reduced population sizes resulting from the glacial maximum significantly reduced its diversity there, and thus its estimated age. In Central and East Asia, however, its age is estimated at around 30,000 years old, meaning your lineage made it into those areas during some of the earlier migrations
out of the Near East.

Haplogroup H is a great example of the effect that population dynamics such as bottleneck events, founder effect, genetic drift, and rapid population growth, have on the genetic diversity of resulting populations.

+++

Who is this guy? He is teaching me Flash.
What does this mean to you?
It means:
Be concerned with me
and my mad tool-fashioning Flash-building wrath
and my silky, prehensile tail.
And it means
that if you read all the way down to this point,
I have such intense feelings for you
that you'll never comprehend them in one lifetime.
You are the chosen one.
Our mothership awaits.

Either that, or you are just really bored.

Either way, I thank you.

Now bring me some wine and cheese.
And Beck.
The beer or the musician. Both are good.