The M89s split into M170 and M9
The initial pages of this site provide some sort of picture about the origins of the CHILVERS' family. We can trace some ancestry back to 1555, but in fact just by following the name CHILVERS we could only go back, at the very very furthest, to about 1300 or 1400AD - when surnames came about. But thanks to DNA analysis we are able to look a lot further than that - right back to the beginnings of Man.
Initial DNA analysis is very interesting - there are apparently two CHILVERS haplogroups: R1b1c and Ia1. Impressed? Or confused? Well, to start with have a little look at my pages about DNA analysis - and if you haven't already then join in!!
But let's look at what this means. Modern Man - Homo sapiens sapiens- has his (her) origins in East Africa about 200,000 to 100,000 years ago. Hominids had been around for quite a few million or so years, so we, Man, are a very very recent addition. Today, there is general (but not universal) agreement that Homo erectus, the precursor to modern humans, evolved in Africa and gradually expanded to Eurasia beginning to leave Africa about 1.7 million years ago. Homo habilis, the first of the genus homo, developed about 2.5 million years ago. If you want some sort of picture in your mind, then if you imagine that Homo habilis appeared on 1 January, and we are now at 31 December, then Homo sapiens arrived on the scene a couple of weeks ago, just in time for the works Christmas parties.
By around 100,000 years ago, several species of hominids populated the Earth, including H. sapiens in Africa, H. erectus in Southeast Asia and China, and Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis) in Europe. But by around 30,000 years ago, the only surviving hominid species was Homo sapiens.
All current Y-chromosomes in modern Man come from this new African group, called in some literature "Y-chromosomal Adam" - nothing to do with the Bible except in a literary sense. There had been earlier hominids, they just became extinct which provides a cautionary thought!
About 80,000 years ago a group of Man left this East African homeland in the second great migration out of Africa by the species, heading northwards. Some experts put the numbers involved at between 10,000 and 50,000 - a reasonable football crowd.
We can track Man's progress by the DNA trail. What is important to note however is that all of what is written here is the subject of massive academic debate - I've presented the generally accepted views - but by no means everyone agrees, often vehemently disagreeing! I have taken a fair bit of this (including the maps) from National Geographic's site dealing with the Genographic Project.
The original Man has a DNA profile (haplogroup) labelled A, but around 55,000 years ago in North-east Africa, probably around present-day Ethiopia and Sudan, a variation (mutation) occurred which defined a new DNA haplogroup BR.
Sometime between 55,000 and 31,000 years ago a further mutation occurred (labelled M168) in the same area, forming haplogroup CR. Actually 31,000 is rather too close, because current thinking gives another mutation (M89) in northern Africa about 45,000 years ago, to form another haplogroup we are interested in - F. In fact this M89 mutation is so important that 90% of the current male population of the world belong to this haplogroup or one of its derivatives (subclades). The CHILVERS of course are one of these.
The M89 ancestors followed the expanding grasslands and plentiful game to the Middle East and beyond.
So far so good. All the CHILVERS ancestors are still together at this point.
At this point some of the M89 Middle Eastern Clan continued to migrate north-west into the Balkans and eventually spread into central Europe becoming responsible for the expansion of the prosperous Gravettian culture, which spread through northern Europe from about 21,000 to 28,000 years ago.
The man who gave rise to marker M170, the marker for the I haplogroup, 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 by the last blast of the Ice Age, possibly in the Balkans. As the ice sheets covering much of Europe began to retreat about 15,000 years ago, his descendants likely played a central role in recolonising northern Europe.
Meanwhile for the M89s remaining in the Middle East the climate shifted once again and became colder and more arid. Drought hit Africa and the grasslands reverted to desert, and for the next 20,000 years the Saharan gateway was effectively closed. With the desert impassable, these ancestors had two options: remain in the Middle East, or move on. Retreat back to the home continent was not an option.
A number of M89 continued to follow the great herds of buffalo, antelope, woolly mammoths, and other game through what is now modern-day Iran to the vast steppes of Central Asia, where 40,000 years ago another mutation occurred, labelled M9, creating another haplogroup, K.
The M9s, seasoned hunters, followed the herds ever eastward, along the vast superhighway of Eurasian steppe. Eventually their path was blocked by the massive mountain ranges of south Central Asia the Hindu Kush, the Tian Shan and the Himalayas. The three mountain ranges meet in a region known as the �Pamir Knot�, located in present-day Tajikstan. Here the tribes of hunters split into two groups. Some moved north into Central Asia, others moved south into what is now Pakistan and the Indian sub-continent.
The different migration routes through the Pamir Knot region gave rise to separate lineages. Most people native to the Northern Hemisphere trace their roots to the Eurasian Clan. Nearly all North Americans and East Asians are descended from the man described above, as are most Europeans and many Indians.
The excitement for the M9s doesn't end there either, as that part of the tribe continue the march northwards into the area currently designated the Hindu Kush, southern Siberia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, when another significant mutation occurred around 35,000 years ago, M45, which led to the P-haplogroup. Resourcefulness and ability to adapt was critical to survival during the last Ice Age in Siberia, a region where no other hominid species is known to have lived.
After spending considerable time in Central Asia, refining skills to survive in harsh new conditions and exploit new resources, a group from the Central Asian Clan began to head west towards Europe.
An individual in this clan carried the new M207 mutation on his Y-chromosome some 30-35,000 years ago. His descendants ultimately split into two distinct groups, with one continuing on to Europe, making this man the ancestor of most western European men alive today. A further mutation occurred, M173 on the way to Europe.
Around 30,000 years ago, a descendant of the clan making its way into Europe gave rise to marker M343, the defining marker of the R1b-haplogroup. These people dominated the human expansion into Europe, the Cro-Magnon. It is believed that Cro-Magnon Man lived alongside the Neanderthals, and according to some expert opinion, caused the latter's extinction, although there is evidence they co-existed for 10,000 years or so.
The Cro-Magnon are responsible for the famous cave paintings found in southern France. These spectacular paintings provide archaeological evidence that there was a sudden blossoming of artistic skills as your ancestors moved into Europe. Prior to this, artistic endeavours were mostly comprised of jewellery made of shell, bone and ivory; primitive musical instruments; and stone carvings. These people knew how to make woven clothing using the natural fibres of plants, and had relatively advanced tools of stone, bone and ivory.
When the ice came again in the latest glacial period (18-10,000 years ago) the tribes were grouped in three main areas, taking shelter: R1b sheltered in the Iberian peninsula, R1a in the Eurasian Steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas (these were the first speakers of the Indo-European language around 7,000 years ago), and I in northern Greece/Yugoslavia. The R1b groups sheltering in the Iberian peninsula (ancestors of some CHILVERS) created the famous cave-paintings in France and Spain. If you feel the urge to draw cows and deer on dimly-lit cave walls, then it's purely genetic, not odd.
But if you're from the I haplogroup then your artistic tendencies are slightly different, as they are linked with the Gravettian culture that produced carvings in caves. You probably feel more at home with a chisel than a paintbrush!! Actually this culture also produced figurines in ceramic, bone and ivory of, how can I put it, "well-endowed ladies" - just "Google" the words gravettian and venus and see what I mean!!
I don't know if it's been remarked upon anywhere, but it may be significant that western European culture used writing and pictorial art through its history, while Nordic cultures used runes carved into stone.
When the ice melted (about 10,000 years ago) the groups moved northwards - R1b populating most of Western Europe, in general as far east as northern Germany. Haplogroup I carried on further northwards into Scandinavia, forming the basis of the Viking population.
It is interesting to note that the initial findings of the CHILVERS DNA bears out accepted history. East Anglia itself was home to the Angles who came from the Schleswig-Holstein area of north Germany, and the R1b group has its recent origins around the Swaffham district in the heart of East Anglia. The I1a result emanates from Kent where the Jutes settled. The Jutes came from further north than the Angles - from the Jutland peninsula (the phrase "Anglo-Saxon" is used to describe all the Germanic invaders of the 5th and 6th centuries - Angles, Saxons and Jutes). Of course this is all rather simplistic, and history is nowhere near that clear.
But whatever, there you have it. The CHILVERS forebears are safely deposited in northern Europe after a journey of many thousand miles on foot taking in 3 continents and in which they last saw each other about 20,000 years ago - ready to take a boat trip together across the North Sea in the 5th and 6th century. And we can safely go back to looking at certificates and parish registers.
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Page last updated 28 May 2007