Odyssey of Y Act 11 The Western Front. John Henry Brooker. 1916 CE

Back to the Future: Time Travel and Haplogroup Index

John Henry Brooker on the Western Front. Based on his military service record, an existing photo and family traits. Visualised by Google Gemini.

The Genetic Ghost: An Ancient Odyssey

My paternal lineage carries a rare genetic ghost within its Y chromosome—Haplogroup L-FGC51036. This signature survived the winds of prehistory in the Zagros region of Southwest Asia before being swept westwards toward the Levant. By the close of the medieval period, it surfaced in the English counties of Hampshire and Berkshire.

How did it arrive? Perhaps it was carried to the port of Southampton by a Venetian galley. By 1746, the lineage officially entered the records of my surname line, represented by a copyhold tenant of a North Berkshire manor. This Asian lineage, rooted for centuries in English soil, eventually transitioned from the rural fields of Oxfordshire to the urban bustle of London, and finally to the mud of the Western Front.

From Soil to City: The Brooker Roots

The story of the "Man of Mystery," my great-grandfather John Henry Brooker, begins with a break from the past. During the 19th century, his father, Henry Brooker Sr., grew up on Oxfordshire farms as a poor labourer. Henry eventually turned his back on the rural poverty that had plagued his ancestors since they were made landless by the Enclosure Acts.

Seeking a new life, Henry arrived in the East End of London. He brought with him a countryman’s mastery of horsemanship, finding work as a carman—a carter driving horse and cart to move goods. Records show he briefly served as a coachman, swapping cargo for passengers, before ending his career as a storeman for a haulage business.

The Scholar and the Soldier

Henry’s skills were passed to his son, John Henry, but the boy was destined for more than the driver’s seat. Moving further east to Deptford and Lewisham, John Henry excelled in school. By 1901, his academic prowess earned him an appointment as a pupil-teacher, a role that usually led to a professional teaching career.

However, the Royal Field Artillery (RFA) barracks at Woolwich were near his neighborhood. Whether drawn by the draught-horse craft of his father or his own mathematical aptitude, John Henry traded the classroom for the gun carriage. In 1906, while serving as a Gunner in the 65th Battery RFA, he married Faith Eliza Baxter, a Norfolk maid working in London.

A Marriage in the Shadows

The marriage was short-lived and shadowed by tragedy. Faith had recently given birth to a daughter; John Henry, raised in the strictures of Edwardian working-class morality, likely married her to "do the right thing." It was a misguided judgment that would haunt him.

Family lore, told from Faith’s perspective, whispered of an assault in Ireland. However, DNA matching has provided a clearer, if more complex, picture. I share genetic segments with numerous descendants of Henry Brooker, confirming John Henry was indeed the biological father of my grandfather, born in 1908. While Faith—whose parents were born in the Gressenhall Union workhouse—lived by a different, perhaps survivalist moral standard, John Henry remained a man of quiet virtue, deeply concerned with his reputation. The two were fundamentally incompatible.

The "Twelve-Year Man": War and Survival

To trace John Henry’s military life is to follow the trajectory of the British Army itself, moving from the polished professional ranks of the "Old Contemptibles" to the industrial carnage of the Great War.

The Professional Prelude (1911–1914)

By 1911, John was a seasoned specialist stationed in Ireland. At the Kildare Curragh, he mastered the 18-pounder quick-firing gun. By the outbreak of war, he was a Corporal—a man of muscle and mathematics capable of directing lethal fire with precision.

The Baptism of Fire (1914–1917)

  • Mons & Le Cateau: Landing at Le Havre on August 16, 1914, John was thrust into the retreat from Mons. At Le Cateau, his battery stood their ground against overwhelming odds to cover the infantry.

  • The Great Attrition: He endured the first gas attacks at the Second Battle of Ypres (1915) and the horror of The Somme (1916). Here, his mathematical mind was vital for the "creeping barrage," a wall of fire that required absolute synchronization.

  • The Italian Front: In late 1917, he was dispatched to the River Piave to bolster Italian forces after the disaster at Caporetto.

The Final Act (1918–Post-War)

John returned to France to stall the 1918 German Spring Offensive. By then, his administrative aptitude had likely moved him into "Battery Office" roles. This logistical experience became his bridge to civilian life, securing him a post-war position as an Admiralty Clerk.

A Legacy Reclaimed

A portrait, as visualised by Google Gemini, based on the only surviving photo taken of John Henry Brooker in 1933.

The war left its marks—the likely hearing loss of a career gunner and the psychological weight of four years of bombardment. Following the period working for the Admiralty as a clerk at Whitehall SW, John Henry eventually settled in Sidcup, Kent, working as a clerk for Post Office Transport. In 1945, on reaching retirement, he was a higher clerical officer, responsible for transportation, as the Post Office were building up their national telephone network.

Though long estranged from my branch of the family, he built a stable life with Mabel Tanner. In his final years during the 1950s, he traveled back to Norfolk to visit his son, Reginald, and his grandchildren. He is no longer the "Man of Mystery" or the young gunner in a broken marriage, but a survivor of the most technologically demanding era in human history—the living vessel for a "genetic ghost" that had traveled from the Zagros Mountains to the quiet suburbs of Kent.


GO TO NEXT ACT - My Grandfather, an Edwardian Love Triangle puzzle solved. The lineage joins East Anglian family history in Norfolk.


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Odyssey of Y Act 10 To the Written Record. John Brooker, Long Wittenham, Berkshire 1746 CE

Back to the Future: Time Travel and Haplogroup Index

The convergence of genetic evidence and documentary research has brought a new level of precision to my recorded genealogy, allowing me to trace the odyssey of my paternal lineage: yDNA haplogroup L-SK1414 > FGC51040 > FGC51036.

In the mid-18th century, my Brooker ancestors emerge from the shadows of surviving parish records. On November 1, 1746, my 6 x great-grandparents, John Brooker and Mary Gardiner, were married at St John’s College, Oxford. They were not scholars; rather, John was a copyhold tenant of the College. At the time, the vicar of St Mary’s in Long Wittenham was non-resident, living in Oxford. It was more practical and cost-effective for the couple to travel to Oxford for the ceremony than to pay the fees required to entice the vicar back to their home parish.

The marriage register identifies both John and Mary as residents of Long Wittenham, Berkshire. In 1746, the parish was primarily held by two landowners, including St John’s College. As tenants on this manor, John and Mary would have practiced communal farming within an open-field system—a landscape defined by individual strips allocated to various tenants, a practice that persisted long after the medieval period.

While Mary was born and raised in the nearby parish of East Hagbourne, identifying John’s origins has proven more elusive. I once hypothesized that he belonged to the Brooker family of East Hagbourne; however, rigorous genealogical research—utilizing a process of elimination to rule out other John Brookers of similar age and nomenclature in neighboring Berkshire parishes—disproved that theory. Consequently, the specific birthplace of my 6 x great-grandfather remains a mystery, as he first appears in the historical record in 1746.

My 6 x great grandfather John Brooker? As visualised by Google Gemini AI.

While there is no definitive documentary record of John Brooker’s origins, the evidence suggests a clear migratory pattern. Based on yDNA STR markers that indicate a shared paternal lineage with the Chandler family of Basingstoke, I hypothesize that my Brooker ancestors migrated northwards across the North Wessex Downs of Hampshire and Berkshire between the 16th and 18th centuries. As explored in Act 9, I suspect that the wool trade and sheep farming may have provided a catalyst for this movement. I have mapped this target area below to illustrate the potential path of this migration.

Source ©  OpenStreetMaps Modified by myself.

There are several parishes within that target zone, where I see both Brooker and Chandler entries in the same registers, even on the same page. STR comparisons of our yDNA suggests a convergence between 1540 and 1600 CE.

The story of John does not end in 1746. John and Mary had at least six children baptized at St Mary’s between 1749 and 1763, including my 5 x great-grandfather, Edward Brooker, in 1757. Edward witnessed the parliamentary enclosure of Long Wittenham's open fields in 1809. It was his son, John Brooker Jr., who—like many others dispossessed of land tenure—fell into the poverty of the agricultural laboring class. He eventually drifted landless across the river and eastward through Oxfordshire in search of work.

Our yDNA lineage—descended from Ice Age ibex hunters in the Zagros Mountains, Early Neolithic goat herders, and Chalcolithic priests—has traversed millennia. It has survived the rise of the Ur III civilization, the era of Hurrian merchants in the Mitanni Empire, and the bustle of Phoenician temples. From Levantine mariners on 15th-century Italian galleys to Tudor wool merchants in Basingstoke, our ancestors have occupied every stratum of history. Now, they toiled in the soils of Oxfordshire for others.

GO TO NEXT ACT - Royal Field Artillery. Western Front. 1916 CE.


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Odyssey of Y Act 9 - Option B Southampton Mariner to Wool Merchant of Hampshire 1540 CE

Back to the Future: Time Travel and Haplogroup Index

My working hypothesis is that the yDNA lineage L-SK1414 > FGC51040 > FGC51036 first reached Hampshire soil via a Levantine mariner serving aboard a Venetian galley. While he could have absconded upon reaching Southampton, I suspect a different path: a brief encounter with a local Hampshire woman before he returned to the sea.

This 'dalliance' provides a more plausible explanation for how this specific DNA entered the regional gene pool during the transition from the late medieval period to the Tudor era. Naturally, much of this paternal odyssey remains rooted in conjecture. To bridge the gaps in the historical record, I have used Gemini AI to imagine the meeting between this distant ancestor and my 15th century great-grandmother in the bustling port of Southampton.

The Southampton priest appears disgruntled at the prospect of baptizing a child born out of wedlock, doesn’t he? Yet, I’ve directed Gemini AI to capture the mother’s joy—portraying her as an innocent soul, undeterred by the cleric's disapproval.

Perhaps I have let my imagination run a step ahead of the records, but the narrative is tempting. Forty years after that first arrival, I imagine the mariner’s son defying the period’s inherent prejudices to rise to the rank of a wool merchant. The lifeblood of Southampton was the highly valued wool of the surrounding counties, which acted as a magnet for foreign fleets. In this scene, I have asked Gemini AI to portray my ancestor as an entrepreneur, visiting the wool hall in Basingstoke.

There is a firm rationale for this setting. If my paternal lineage arrived in the late medieval or early Tudor era at Southampton, the line clearly drifted northward toward the Berkshire and Hampshire Downs. Basingstoke is the earliest known residence of the Chandler family, with whom I share a specific yDNA signature.

A comparison of my STR (Short Tandem Repeat) markers against the Basingstoke Chandlers suggests the following TMRCA (Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor):

Probability Estimated Generations Estimated Years Before Present
50% (Median) ~14–16 Generations 420–480 Years
95% (Confidence) 4–35 Generations 120–1,050 Years

Historical Correlation:

Assuming a standard genealogical generation of 30 years, this 14–16 generation gap places our common ancestor between 1540 and 1600 CE.

I recognize the hurdles of such a rapid ascent in 1540. The era was fraught with xenophobia and a profound suspicion of those with Mediterranean features or Catholic leanings. While the dating range is flexible—the DNA may have arrived earlier, taking several generations to migrate toward the Downs—I am using a degree of 'informed conjecture' to frame my AI-generated imagery. I believe the science of STR matching is most powerful when paired with a narrative. This is not just a data point; it is a 'could have been' for how my lineage took root in English soil.

Act 9 of the Odyssey: My yDNA has traversed the millennia—moving from an Ice Age ibex-hunter in the Zagros Mountains to a Proto-Neolithic goat herder, then onward through a priest-diviner on the Khorasan Highway. It has lived as a Bronze Age smith visiting the Great Sumerian civilizations, a Hurrian merchant reaching the Levant, and a temple accountant in Roman Phoenicia, before finally arriving as a mariner in Tudor England.

This concludes the division between the Early migration to Britain (Hypothesis A), and this Late migration to Britain hypothesis. Next, both streams meet as we arrive at the written record, where our Y-DNA L-FGC51036 meets the documented trail of genealogy.

GO TO NEXT ACT - John Brooker, 18th century copyhold tenant of Long Wittenham, Berkshire. 1746 CE.


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Odyssey of Y Act 2 Zarzian culture. Zagros. 13,000 BCE

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The Zarzian Return: 18,000 BCE I visualize the Zarzian hunter-gatherers of the Zagros and ask: is this my great-grandfather?

The unbearably harsh conditions of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) once drove the Baradostian Ice Age hunters out of these mountains and into lower-altitude refuges. However, after 20,000 years ago, the climate began to stabilize, permitting a slow return to the Zagros valleys. Unlike many other groups of the era, my paternal ancestors do not appear to have traveled far; they remained rooted in the Zagros or South Caucasus region for an immense span of time. I would conjecture that they return to the same valleys:

13,000 years ago. Zagros Mountains and valleys (now in Iran) South West Asia

The Zagros and South Caucasus mountains (now in Iran), South West Asia. © OpenStreetMap contributors".

The Zarzian Way: A Prelude to Farming The Zarzian culture was the eastern equivalent of the Epipalaeolithic Natufians in the western Fertile Crescent. While their Baradostian predecessors had sustained themselves primarily by hunting caprines—wild goats and sheep—life after the Last Glacial Maximum shifted toward a broader strategy.

Post-glacial humans enjoyed a far greater diversity of food. Their diet expanded beyond the ibex and mouflon to include onagers, gazelles, crustaceans, fish, birds, and—as visualized above—tortoises. They also gathered a wide array of wild plants, including legumes, nuts, and grass seeds. Evidence of grinding stones suggests they were processing these into porridges or primitive flatbreads.

This period likely represented a critical, early stage in the journey toward agriculture. Accidental selection processes were already in motion. By gathering seeds from plants with firmer rachises (the stem holding the grain), they were unconsciously initiating the shift toward domestication. A similar, unintended process was occurring with their prey. By managing their herds—selecting specific animals to hunt while preserving others—they began the long transition toward animal husbandry. They weren't intentionally trying to "invent" farming; rather, it was nature at work, forging new, symbiotic relationships between humans and the species around them.

Their tools evolved alongside their diet. While the Baradostians excelled at manufacturing burins and regular blades, the Zarzians pushed flint technology further, creating even smaller, geometric microliths designed for complex, composite tools.

GO TO NEXT ACT - Aceramic Neolithic 7,500 BCE


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Odyssey of Y Act 1 Baradostian culture. Zagros. 25,000 BCE

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An early Zagros hunter and his band. Visualised for me by Gemini AI. My great grandfather?

Introduction This is the tale of a long journey from the last Ice Age to the present day—a history of my paternal lineage as determined by Y-DNA research, archaeology, linguistics, and, to be honest, a fair amount of conjecture. While this is the story of just one ancestral line of an East Anglian, it represents a single thread in a vast tapestry. There are thousands more ancestors in my past, but their specific stories are lost in the quagmire of genetic recombination. Our ancestry is far less localized than we conventionally think; you likely have a similarly epic story hidden in your own cells. I was simply lucky enough that this one followed a steady genetic marker down through the millennia.

The Subject Matter I am an English "chappie" from an East Anglian family. However, a DNA test revealed a far more exotic signature:

Y-DNA Haplogroup L (+M20 +M22 +M317 +SK1412 +SK1414 +FGC51041 +FGC51036)

For the sake of brevity, let’s call it L-FGC51036.

If I were to trace my father's line - back through grandfathers and great-grandfathers, all the way to the depths of the Last Glacial Maximum - who would that ancestor be? How did he survive the biting cold of the Ice Age, and where on this earth was he standing?


The Zagros Mountains (now in Iran), South West Asia. © OpenStreetMap contributors".

The Ice Age Pioneers: 25,000 Years Ago This is where I believe my direct paternal ancestor lived 25,000 years ago. The climate was seasonally harsh as the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) approached—a period when life in the Zagros would eventually become intolerable. For now, however, my Ice Age ancestor and his band survived by hunting large game, particularly the Bezoar Ibex (wild goat) and the Mouflon (wild sheep). This was the dawn of a profound relationship; our later ancestors would slowly forge a bond with the local ibex, eventually leading to its domestication. By exploiting the varied habitats across different altitudes of the Zagros valleys, they practiced what anthropologists call vertical hunting.

These were not the first humans to inhabit the region. Anatomically modern humans arrived circa 40,000 years ago, but Neanderthals had made these valleys their home long before. While my 23andMe results suggest I have more Neanderthal DNA than 98% of their customers, I take that specific metric with a grain of salt. Regardless of that ancient admixture, these modern humans in the Zagros—likely my direct ancestors—are known to archaeologists as the Baradostian Culture.

The Baradostians are often linked to the Aurignacian Culture of Europe, the famous pioneers who trekked across the European continent between 40,000 and 33,000 years ago. While the European Aurignacians left behind splendid cave paintings and sculptures—often featuring lions—the Baradostians of Southwest Asia left a more subtle mark. Some researchers even suggest that the Aurignacians were actually Baradostians who had migrated into Europe.

While we find fewer examples of Ice Age artwork in the Zagros, this may simply be due to sampling bias; modern politics and conflict often hinder archaeological investigation in the region. Instead, we look to their flint assemblages. The Baradostians were adept at knapping small bladelets and crafting burins—sharp, chisel-edged tools used for piercing hides. They utilized massive limestone caves and rock shelters, such as Shanidar and Yafteh, as seasonal basecamps. Inside, archaeologists have found evidence of large, central hearths where families would gather to cook, repair tools, and perhaps pass down the oral traditions that kept their culture alive.

But the climate was shifting. By 20,000 years ago, the LGM arrived in full force. Even the hardy Baradostians could no longer endure the mountain winters, and the culture faded away as they retreated to more hospitable refuges.

GO TO NEXT ACT - Zarzian Culture. 18,000 BCE

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Consilience

John Brooker of Long Wittenham, born circa 1720 in Berkshire area? My 6 x great granddaddy. Gemini AI visualised this image based on my own features and on his recorded life.

Why so much hyper-focus on my Y chromosome just recently?  I guess because I have made a few breakthroughs on other lines of the family tree. I had a long conversation with AI about my paternal line and we came to agreement that I had made an error. That had to be put right. After removing those errors, this is where I got back to on my direct paternal line (aka surname line):

  1. My 6x great grandfather was named John Brooker.
  2. My 6x great grandmother was named Mary Gardiner. She was born in 1717 at Hagbourne, Berkshire.
  3. This couple married 1st November 1746 at Oxford College, Oxfordshire. They were both described as residing at Long Wittenham, Berkshire. I have discovered that the reason that they were married at Oxford College was that their parish had been allocated to a vicar living in Oxford College. It was cheaper for them to be married at Oxford, than to call the vicar back to their parish.
  4. Following marriage, John and Mary Brooker proceeded to have at least six children born at Long Wittenham - Mary, Anne, John, Edward, Martha, and a Sarah Brooker. John was a copyhold tenant of St John's College, Oxford, who were one of the two main land holders at Long Wittenham. As a copyholder, John would have cultivated a number of strips in the open-field systems still being used at Long Wittenham. He wasn't a pauper, but neither was he likely to be particularly wealthy.
  5. Before 1746, I have baptism and ancestry for his wife Mary nee Gardiner, but for John, it's the Great Genealogical Dead End.

What were these errors that I deleted for 6 x great grandad John?  I had found numerous John Brookers baptised circa 1720 in the local area. After much deliberation, I settled for the closest village to Long Wittenham, the parish from which his bride had also moved from, I chose a John Brooker baptised at East Hagbourne. But in my heart I knew that there were issues with this choice. For one thing, a lack of correlation in the names of children. Then I became convinced that the John Brooker of Hagbourne, had lived a separate existence from the John Brooker of Long Wittenham. Genealogical crisis!

I immediately recovered from the shock, and started anew with fresh 2026 research. After all, I started out on this quest in 1989, and things have moved on a tad since then. Not only with digitalised, indexed, and online genealogy, but also with genetic genealogy. This is where I shall take this discussion next.

Around 12 years ago, I tested my y-DNA - the DNA that is contained in my Y Chromosome. This can only be passed from biological father to son. Trace it back, and it follows the direct paternal line, all the way back to Y-DNA Adam in Africa. You can use its variants (aka mutations) to tell a story of that one narrow line of descent, way back into prehistory. It does not ALWAYS follow the surname line perfectly, because of illegitimacy as it was previously known, adoption, affairs, and more. People sometimes change name to escape from their past. In the long term, the y-DNA surpasses the origination and adoption of surnames as they occurred during the Medieval.

I've discussed to death the route this genetic evidence tells me that my paternal ancestors must have taken in the past, and will continue to do so:

  1. 28,000 years ago Ice Age hunters of ibex and mouflon in the Zagros mountains of South-West Asia.
  2. 11,000  years ago, hunter-foragers still in the Zagros, or in the Caucasus mountains, who were selectively hunting wild herds, and milling gathered wild seeds in ways that would eventually evolve into the earliest agriculture.
  3. 8,000 years ago my paternal ancestors were aceramic neolithic farmers, herding goats, and sheep. Keeping pigs. Growing emmer and einkorn wheat, barley and more. They may have remained in the area of the Zagros, on its foothills where they founded the ancestry of the Hurrians and Kassites. Or perhaps they had moved immediately southwest, onto the floodplains of early Sumer (Iraq) where they would give birth to a great civilisation?
  4. 4,000 years ago. They would have been in contact with great cities in Mesopotamia, Assyria, Babylonia, the Indus Valley, the Levant.
  5. 3,000 years ago. Perhaps swept westwards to the Levant by the fall of the Mitanni, and the dispersals of the Hurrians.
  6. 600 years ago. Maybe a Genoese or Venetian galley docked at Beirut, Acre, Jaffa or Tripoli and took on my paternal ancestor as crew. My yDNA finally leaves Asia, and heads for Europe.
  7. 600 years ago. A galley docks at Southampton in England, where Genoese and Venetian merchants have a permanent presence, interested in English wool. My last Asian ancestor leaves a son in England.
  8. 400 years ago. Our line has taken the surname Brooker, or is it Chandler? Perhaps a child is born outside of wedlock. He takes his mother's surname. The yDNA is consequently divided among two families in the area of Basingstoke, Kingsclere, Sherfield Upon Loddon, and Newbury across the Hampshire/Berkshire border. Chandlers and Brookers.
  9. 280 years ago. My 6x great grandfather, John Brooker lives in Long Wittenham, Berkshire.

The above is a hypothesis based on those variants on my Y DNA, along with the fact that it survives only in Europe, among two small families who were living only 32 miles apart during the 18th century. Thomas Chandler of Basingstoke, and John Brooker of Long Wittenham. Comparing the DNA, there is a 78% probability that the two families shared the same great grandfather line until circa 1600. Our type of DNA (L-FGC51036) is not found anywhere else in Europe. Our closest Y-DNA cousins are from Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Further back in the variants we have Y-Cousins from Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, India, in the Druze ethnicity, in the Parsi ethnicity.

Getting back to the documented record. Our John Brooker. Where did he come from? The DNA does keep pointing south in Berkshire, and to the Hampshire border. A meeting with the Chandlers of Basingstoke. I investigate all of the 'John Brookers' baptised circa 1720 to the south. There can't be many can there? Wrong. I found at least 9 candidates in that part of Berkshire. I have eliminated several from the search, but Berkshire genealogical records are not the best online! I'm usually limited to indexes of transcripts. Transcripts are often wrong. More dead ends.

So I turned to trying to trace back from the Chandlers of Basingstoke hoping that might put me on to the right track for the early Brooker family. I keep hitting more dead ends.

However, here is the thing. Parishes like Chieveley, Newbury, Kingcslere, Sherbourne St John, Sherfield Upon Loddon. I often see entries for baptisms, marriages, and burials for both 'Chandler' and 'Brooker' families. In same villages, registers, sometimes even same pages!

I can smell consilience. Documented trail, and Genetic trail. So close.

Western Hunter-Gatherers - the European Mesolithic

The final in my series exploring the hunter-gatherer cultures of modern humans within Western Eurasia. First I briefly looked at Apidima fossils as evidence that modern traits had been in Europe from an early date. With the Aurignacians, I investigated the earliest known modern human culture in Europe. With the Gravettians, I learned about how hunter-gatherers adapted in the lead up, and into the Last Glacial Maximum How they divided into the Solutrean Culture of Iberia and France in the west; and with the Pavlovian and Epigravettian Cultures of Italy, Czech and the East. With the Magdalenians I discovered how they burst back following Last Glacial Maximum, and through the warmer Bølling–Allerød interstadial.

Above image is my own. Years ago, I recorded several flint microblade waste cores, of which the above wasn't the most regular or impressive. But it's a photo that I could still resource. These artefacts, along with a tranchet axe-head and a few microliths that I recorded, were Mesolithic. I thought that it would be nice if I could bring this series to a close with something, a bit more personal.

Genetics

Let me first sum up the whole Upper Palaeolithic story according to Ancient DNA.

We have established that the Aurignacians had descended from early West Eurasian lineages (in South West  Asia or further north among descendants?) when they split from ANE (Ancient North Eurasian). An early expansion into Western Europe first occurred circa 43,000 years ago, but a volcanic event in Italy may have terminated this occupation, with it resuming afresh circa 37,000 years ago.  They had since admixed with Neanderthals, and on average had 4-5% Neanderthal DNA with long segments. Neanderthals were likely still present in Western Europe, when the Aurignacians arrived there.

Through all of these Upper Palaeolithic cultures, prey species, conditions, and temperatures varied across the entire Eurasian range, with woodlands sometimes forming in Iberia, as opposed the the great Mammoth Steppe further east. Consequently, cultures and perhaps genomes divided into western and eastern blocks over time.

After 33,000 years ago, the Gravettians arrive from the North East, to replace the Aurignacians. Pushed by worsening climatic conditions, they also divided into west and east. Some descendants or relatives of the Aurignacians must have still been surviving, for Genetic studies suggest that during this period of stress, that the original Gravettians were in turn replaced by people who had more Aurignacian-like DNA. The technology and the artefact culture did not evidence this reversal of population.

Last Glacial Maximum passes, and 17,000 years ago, the Magdalenian Culture arises. The population behind this change were not so much the Solutrean of the west, but the people of the Epigravettian of Italy and the East. And they carry Aurignacian DNA. Very late, the Creswellian Culture develops in Britain, along with the Hamburgian around 12,000 to 10,000 years ago.

That brings me up to date with the Western Hunter-Gatherers and the approach of the Holocene.

WHG as a genetic component

So which of these groups did this component descend from?

Chasing this up brings me back to:


In this study, the authors found that WHG ancestry could be located into the Epigravettian genome. That hunter-gatherers had moved up primarily from the eastern and southern refugia to reach places like Britain.

WHG haplogroups so far identified

yDNA are I2a1 (I-M26) and R1b1a (R-V88)
mtDNA are U (mainly U5, U2 and U4)

Were the Earlier Mesolithic people of Britain related to those associated with the Creswellian points? Possibly. Or they could represent a fresh migration most likely not from the recently dominating Magdalenian Culture, but from the descendants of the earlier Epigravettian of SE Europe, possibly with admixture from  fresh populations crossing a dry Aegean from SW Asia:

Wikipedia:

The WHG displayed higher affinity for ancient and modern Middle Eastern populations when compared against earlier Paleolithic Europeans such as Gravettians. The affinity for ancient Middle Eastern populations in Europe increased after the Last Glacial Maximum, correlating with the expansion of WHG (Villabruna or Oberkassel) ancestry. There is also evidence for bi-directional geneflow between WHG and Middle Eastern populations as early as 15,000 years ago.

The WHG of Western Europe is sometimes referred to as the Villabruna or Oberkassel Cluster. They attracted public attention, when analysis of their DNA revealed that they were genetically likely to have had dark hair, and dark skin, with some individuals probably having light coloured, even blue eyes.  Dark skin was likely to have been a feature of earlier, Upper Palaeolithic fore-bearers. Despite low UVR levels, they found other ways of dealing with poor vitamin D production. Their diet may have compensated for the low UVR.

Image Source. Photo by Werner Ustorf (Flickr). Cheddar Man reconstruction.

A separate population appeared in Eastern Europe, defined as EHG (Eastern Hunter-Gatherer) and an SHG (Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherer) admixed between the two groups.

Image Source. Map of distribution for WHG genetic cluster across Europe.

Mesolithic Europe

These were the last of the European hunter-foragers who needed to adapt to climatic and environmental changes of the Holocene period. The Younger Dryas (12,900 to 11,700 years before present) represented a return of bitterly cold conditions before the rapid commencement of the Holocene. See the below trend in temperatures. Temperatures in Greenland rose by 10 C in only a decade.

Image Source.  Evolution of temperature in the Post-Glacial period according to Greenland ice cores (Younger Dryas)

Flora change followed this rapid rise in annual temperatures. During the Earlier Mesolithic, tundra grasslands were gradually replaced by birch scrub, followed by forest. Species to reach Britain included birch, alder, pine, and alder. During the Later Mesolithic, temperatures continued to rise. Lime (Linden), hazel, hawthorn, blackthorn, ash, elm / wych elm, followed. Beech probably didn't arrive until the end of the Mesolithic period. It had previously been speculated that Late Mesolithic lowland Britain would have been covered by one continuous wildwood canopy. However, pollen analysis has suggested some areas of open grassland, possibly kept open by the ruminations of large herbivores such as aurochs (wild cattle), bison, red deer, and roe deer. There has been some suggestion that the hunter-gatherers may have been managing these areas, and extending them with fire. This may have improved the regeneration of hazel (hazel nut was likely to have been a very important food source), and better, more open hunting conditions, where ungulates herd together in the open.

Lithics

The knapped flint and stone tools of the Mesolithic are largely characterised by the production of very small blades known as microliths. These would often be notched into small geometric shapes. Arrows were likely composite, with a microlith point, and small microlith barbs being glued and / or bound along the shaft behind that point. Microliths may have had further uses as microburins (piercers or borers for hide clothing etc) or as scalpel blades for working wood, bone, and antler. A further stone tool associated with this period is the Mesolithic tranchet axe head.

A tranchet axe head that I recorded during my surveying years.

Antler working

Star Carr is a well known archaeological site in North Yorkshire that dates to between 11,280, and 10,500 years before present. This places it shortly after the end of the Younger Dryas during the Earlier Mesolithic.

Image Source.  Star Carr collection at Yorkshire museum - mesolithic spear tips from the earliest known post glacial settlement in England. Star Carr has become the type site for the NW European Earlier Mesolithic.

yDNA haplogroup L in Medieval Cherry Hinton, England

Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire, James Alexander Cameron on Flickr

Most of our nuclear DNA recombines with every generation. But a yDNA Haplogroup is a genetic marker that follows along the direct paternal line, passed down from biological father to son. Follow it back, and it will follow your father's father's, father's, etc.  Most NW European males carry a yDNA haplogroup of R, or I. Sometimes G, J, E. However, I have a variant of L, defined by a mutation coded M20 (L-M20). yDNA haplogroup L is regarded as Non-European and some will insist that it is South Asian. I can reliably trace my own paternal line back to 18th Century Oxfordshire / Thames Valley.  yDNA haplogroup L is NOT seen as European. It is seen as an Asian genetic marker. The males of two English families share my own mutations: BROOKER of Oxfordshire and CHANDLER of Basingstoke, Hampshire. My next closest yDNA matches are men from Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, India, and Lebanon. 

Cherry Hinton, Cambs.

Excavation of a Medieval Cemetery. Ancient DNA revealed.

Consequently, when I saw that FTDNA had given me Ancient Connections from here in England, I at first thought it a mistake. Yet there they were, two excavated skeletons from a medieval cemetery in Cherry Hinton, Cambridgeshire.

Were they relatives / ancestors of the Brooker and Chandler lines?

I investigated. These two human remains dating between 940 CE and 1170 CE, and coded Cherry Hinton 919 and 936 had the M349 and B374 variants. I can best demonstrate our paternal relationship by a plan:


The most recent mutation shared by both myself, and these Medieval Cambridgeshire Men, is M317. The TMRCA (Time of most recent common ancestor) to all descendants, is I'm afraid, 12,700 years ago. The M317 variant first formed 18,100 years ago. Therefore, I and the Cherry Hinton men, last shared a common paternal line at the end of the last Ice Age. I would suggest that our common yDNA ancestors lived somewhere between Anatolia, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Both my own SK1412, and their M349 formed around 12,700 years before present. We cannot share our direct paternal lines before 10,700 BCE.

What do we know about these Medieval men? I have scoured the excavation reports and data sheets:

Genetic history of Cambridgeshire before and after the Black Death

'In total, 48 individuals from Cherry Hinton were targeted for DNA extraction in this study, including 24 females and 24 males (Table S1). Two of the sampled individuals have been directly radiocarbon dated.'

'Cherry Hinton The settlement of Church End Cherry Hinton (Cherry Hinton) is located around six kilometers southeast of Cambridge. In the late 9th to the mid-10th century, a large thengly (aristocratic) or proto-manorial center was established (92, 93). The associated timber chapel and graveyard were excavated in 1999 by the Hertfordshire Archaeological Trust (subsequently Archaeological Solutions and now Wardell Armstrong) in advance of development of the site in accordance with the appropriate planning regulations'

More on the excavation in this Current Archaeology report.

Cherry Hinton 919 (sk3262) was related to a female (mother, or sister?) number 947 (sk3262) with whom he shared his mtDNA haplogroup U5b3e His yDNA was sequenced as L-B374.

Cherry Hinton 936 (sk2077) had no close relatives (albeit had to have shared his paternal line with 919). His mtDNA was T4b4+152. His own yDNA was also L-B374.

Both sequenced from tooth root; classed in Rural 4 group; dated between 940 CE to 1140 CE

The route of their yDNA was: L-M20>M22>M317>M349>B374. See plan above.

The route of the modern BROOKER / CHANDLER lines is: L-M20>M22>M317>SK1412>SK1414>FGC51041>FGC51036

 L-B374 Today

Only one modern English, or British tester, has so far tested on ftDNA, or registered on yFull with a result of L-B374.

The only modern Asian samples have been a single tester from Kazakhstan. Rather, the highest density of testers have placed their paternal lines in Switzerland, The apparent centre of modern L-B374 - this variant looks very European. The TMRCA for B374 is 600 BCE. Following Switzerland, it has also been reported in: Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Tatarstan, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary and Croatia.

This is not the case with my own variant (L-FGC51036). Other than the two South English families, our closest yDNA relatives have been from Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, India, and Turkey. Our own line arrived independently, and possibly later than that of the Cherry Hinton Men. I propose an Early Medieval date for the arrival of my own paternal line in England. Maybe one day we will get as lucky, and our own paternal line ancestors will be excavated?

Documentary Paternal line.

I have proven descent from John Henry Brooker, through genetic matching to support the documentary evidence. I and my sibling share some centimorgans of autosomal DNA with descendants of his sister. Additionally, smaller segments are shared from the prior few generations, to support that this paternal line is biologically true, at least back to Generation 5 (great great grandparent). He was the only one of my great grandfather's not to be Norfolk-born.

If I follow his paternal line (BROOKER) back using traditional genealogical method, I follow it back to the Thames Valley borderlands of rural Oxfordshire and Berkshire. I have good, strong documentary evidence back to my direct paternal line 5 x great grandfather, Edward Brucker, born 1757 at Long Wittenham, Berkshire.

Support for my 6 x great grandfather being a John Brooker born 1722 at Hagbourne, Berkshire in 1722 is pretty good. His father before him I have verified, was another John Brooker born 1691 at Hagbourne. His father was Thomas Brucker, also baptised at Hagbourne in 1658.  If biologically true, he would be my 8 x great grandfather and that would place my Y chromosome in Hagbourne, Berkshire in 1658. The Chandlers who share the yDNA descend from a Thomas Chandler who lived in Basingstoke, Hampshire during the late 18th century. At some point prior to that, our two paternal lines must merge.

Anything earlier than 1658 Hagbourne, too much doubt creeps in, but I have candidates stretching back a few generations waiting for more supportive evidence. They are in the Wantage/Uffington area of Oxfordshire. Caution - they may be incorrect. Another candidate in in Whitchurch, Hampshire.

I've researched the BROOKER surname:

Distribution of BROOKER baptisms AD 1550 - AD 1600 by English County.  County boundaries modern, but East and East Surrey united for historical purposes.  Includes records of derivations of Brooker surname.

During the 16th Century CE, it was not a common surname in Oxfordshire and Berkshire. Its origins are the Sussex / Surrey area. It is possible that I had a Brooker surname ancestor move up through Hampshire into the area. I think that our surname picked up the yDNA in Hampshire, or in a South English port. My favourite hypothesis is that a South West Asian sailor visited, and left a son there early into the Medieval.

This hypothesis might seem unlikely, yet it brings me to:

Updown Girl

In my previous post concerning Anglo Saxon DNA, I discussed this report:


A 2022 survey, where hundreds of ancient human remains were sequenced for DNA. My favourite treasure of that study, came from an Anglo-Saxon grave in Kent. A girl, who had died during the early 7th Century CE (600s) around the age of 11 years of age. She was buried with Anglo Saxon artefacts, with full respect. She was related to some other nearby individuals (great aunts?) who had artefacts suggestive of Frankish origin.

On sequencing UpDown Girl's DNA, it was revealed that 33% was West African in origin!  UpDown Girl most probably had a grandfather from West Africa. Her DNA was most like the modern Esan or Yoruba population groups.

This is another example of why we should be very wary of not generalising. There were always a few travellers who would move far from home. It could be that my Asian sailor was another one, like UpDown Girl?

More on this spectacular find by link:

Wikipedia - UpDown Girl