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Two-Thirds of European Men Descend From Three People

A new study claims to have established that 64% of European men are descendants of just three male ancestors. The international team of scientists looked into the Y chromosome specifics of 334 men from European and Middle Eastern descent, and by resequencing the DNA found that in 64% of the sequences three distinct genetic patterns could be observed. These three patterns, the team calculated, originated between 3,500 and 7,300 years ago.

The precise start of the rapid expansion of populations in Europe has long been the subject of debate. Some argue it began in the Stone Age, between 6,000 and 2,000 BCE, while others claim it started in the Bronze Age, between 3,300 BCE and 600 BCE. The sample of men that the team studied came from 17 different populations. In the representatives of 13 of those populations the researchers found genetic evidence of a population burst between 2,100 to 4,200 years ago, suggesting the rapid increase of the European population started in the Bronze Age. One of the authors of the study, Mark Jobling, from Leicester University’s Department of Genetics, explained that the burst coincided with the domestication of the horse, the emergence of more refined weapon-making technology, and changes in burial practices in the region. This cultural framework probably gave rise to dominant men who fathered enough descendants to carry their genes through the millennia.

Read entire article at New Historian