An early Zagros hunter and his band. Visualised for me by Gemini AI. My great grandfather?
Introduction.
A tale of the long journey from the last Ice Age to the present day, of my paternal lineage as determined by yDNA research, archaeology, history, linguistics, reasoning and to be honest, a lot of conjecture. This is the tale of just one ancestral lineage of an East Anglian. There will be many, many more, but they will be lost in the quagmire of genetic recombination. Our ancestry is far less localised than conventionally thought.You may have a similar story in your own DNA, but I was lucky enough that this one fell down a particular lineage with a steady genetic marker.
The subject matter
I'm an English chappie, of an East Anglian family. But a DNA test declared this:
Y-DNA Haplogroup L +M20 +M22 +M317 +SK1412 +SK1414 (or FGC51074) +FGC51041 (or Y31947) +FGC51036
Let's just call it L-FGC51036 for short.
If I was to trace my father's, father's, father's, father's, father's, father's... All the way back through many ancient great grand daddies. All the way back to the Last Glacial Maximum of the cold, cold Ice Age. Who would he be? How did he survive? Where was he?
25,000 years ago. Where?
The Zagros Mountains (now in Iran), South West Asia. © OpenStreetMap contributors".
This is where we believe that my direct paternal ancestor was living 25,000 years ago. The climate was seasonally harsh. The very cold and long 'Last Glacial Maximum' was approaching, when life in the Zagros would become intolerable to human life. But for now, my Ice Age great grandfather and his band could survive, by hunting large game - particularly the Bezoar Ibex (Wild Goat) as visualised by AI in the image at the top of this post; along with the Mouflon (Wild Sheep). The relationship with the goat began here in the Zagros. Our later ancestors were to slowly forge a special relationship with the local wild ibex, eventually domesticating it. But more on that in the next age. They would have exploited the varied habitats of the slopes at different altitudes of a Zagros valley. Anthropologists call this vertical hunting.
These were not the first humans to live in the Zagros. They arrived by circa 40,000 years ago, but Neanderthals had made the Zagros valleys their home before this event. 23andme tells me that I have more Neanderthal DNA than 98% of its customers in the database, but I have doubts concerning the quality of that test. Asides from the Neanderthals, these Zagros anatomically modern humans who are likely to be among my direct ancestors, and they are known to archaeologists as the:
Baradostian Culture.
This culture is linked to an early anatomically modern human culture in Europe, known as the Aurignacian Culture, If you clicked on that link, you'll know that I have previously blogged about these fascinating pioneers. Specialist reindeer hunters who trekked over Europe between 40,000 and 33,000 years ago. There they left some splendid art, both in sculptures and cave paintings. Lions were often a subject matter for the European Aurignacian. Some researchers believe that the SW Asian Baradostians were related to the Aurignacians. A few even suggest that the Aurignacians were Baradostians who had migrated into Europe.
There have been fewer examples of Ice Age artwork found in the Zagros, but this could be sampling bias. Investigation of the region isn't always possible due to modern politics and conflict. Instead, archaeologists have collected flint assemblages here, used by the Baradostians. They were particularly adept at knapping small bladelets, similar to those of the unrelated, and much later British Mesolithic hunters. The locals also generated a lot of burins, small sharp chisel-edged tools for cutting or piercing softer materials such as animal hides, and used massive limestone caves and rock shelters—like Shanidar and Yafteh as their seasonal basecamps. Inside these caves, archaeologists have found clear evidence of large, central hearths. There the Baradostians would gather around these fires to cook, stay warm during the bitter Zagros winters, repair their tools, and likely pass down oral traditions.
Climates were changing. by 20,000 years ago, the LGM (Last Glacial Maximum) arrives, and even the Baradostians can no longer survive the mountains. As a culture, they fade away to some refuge.