Journals of a Time Traveller

Images here are visualisations by Google Gemini

Meet a great-grandmother from 250 generations ago. She carries the mtDNA haplogroup H6, or perhaps H6a, in trillions of her cells. She is a descendant of the 'Basal Helena' we met in the Levant 25,000 BCE. But this grandmother lives on the banks of the Volga, in what is now southern Russia, and the date is 4,500 BCE.

5,000–4,500 BCE), the Khvalynsk culture

Source ©  OpenStreetMaps Modified by myself.

She is no longer a nomad of the caves. Here she belongs to a world of copper, cattle, and sheep—the first great social hierarchies of the steppe. The ancient spark from the Levant has adapted to the cold winds of the north.

Our 250-times great-grandmother is not a wife of the Fertile Crescent Neolithic, nor have her people abandoned their Eastern Hunter-Gatherer roots. Instead, they have adapted to a way of life unique to the steppe. The herds they once hunted, they now master. They take from the Fertile Crescent what they need—sheep and cattle—but they do not toil the soil. They are women of the great Eurasian Steppe. They are becoming the great pastoralists; the herders of the endless grasslands

This ancestor belongs to an archaeological layer which Russian researchers have named the Khvalynsk culture. It is a period defined by a pivotal shift: the move away from hunting, fishing, and foraging towards the pastoral herding of cattle, sheep, and goats.

These herds introduced the concepts of private property and surplus value to their economy—a newfound wealth that seems to have stratified their society. While some of their graves were laden with status objects, such as polished stone maces and copper bracelets, rings and pendants, others remained starkly bare.

The Great Eurasian Steppe serves as the continent's primary thoroughfare. Across these vast grasslands, new cultures, languages, and peoples—alongside their livestock and technologies—surged east and west, linking Europe, the Caucasus, and Central and East Asia. The people of the Khvalynsk culture were a product of this flux, carrying the genetic heritage of several previously isolated populations. These included hunter-gatherer groups local to the East Europe and the Eurasian Steppe, from the Caucasus, and from as far away as Siberia. Our 250th great-grandmother’s matrilineal lineage once resided on the Iranian Plateau before embarking on an arduous trek far to the north. Her arrival on the Volga helped forge a new way of life, blending southern traditions with the rugged spirit of the northern plains.

Basal Helena and her daughter H, 25,000 BCE Levant, SW Asia.

The ovum is where life begins. Inside is a tiny, ancient spark: the mitochondrion. A mother wraps the new life in her own vitality, providing the energy that allows those first cells to divide. Almost every one of the trillions of cells in our bodies contains them. We inherit them solely from the egg. Because they carry their own DNA outside the nucleus, we can use them to trace a direct line back through our mothers. Imagine walking back a thousand generations to meet the woman who carried yours.

It is the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum, the harshest stage of the Ice Age. You are at Mount Carmel in the Levant. It isn't dry or dusty here; the climate is Mediterranean, much like modern southern France. Despite the global cold, rainfall is high and the vegetation is lush—a parkland of oak, wild pistachio, and terebinth. Herds crowd into this refuge: gazelle, fallow deer, wild boar, aurochs, and ibex. Humans seek sanctuary here too. We meet our 1000 x great-grandmother: Basal Helena and her daughter, who carries the mtDNA H lineage. They live in a band of thirty. These are Basal Eurasians—descendants of the 'Out of Africa' migration who lack any Neanderthal heritage.

These women do not farm. They are not masters of nature, but a part of it. They live on the resources of the ecosystem, foraging wild grass seeds—the ancestors of wheat and barley. They gather acorns, pistachios, almonds, lentils, and peas. They trek to the coast for limpets and mussels, and to the rivers for fish. They stock their stores with 'slow game' like tortoises and birds' eggs. As hunters, they track gazelle, deer, boar, and aurochs.

​The air is humid and water is abundant. The camp is a sanctuary, surrounded by a world in constant growth. For Helena, the climate is a partner in survival—providing the steady energy that allows her to become the mother of an entire lineage.

I carry the Levant with me. In every cell of my body, Helena’s mitochondrial signature remains active, an unbroken chain of life stretching back twenty thousand years. We are not just descendants of the Ice Age; we are the current vessels for its enduring fire.