Journals of a Time Traveller

This completes both the Odyssey of Y and Ovum series of blog posts.

Index

Odyssey of Y charts the journey of my Y-DNA, from the Zagros Mountains 25,000 years ago, to my Great Grandfather on the Western Front. It is yDNA haplogroup L. My terminal is Y-DNA Haplogroup L (M20) > M22 > M317 > SK1412 > SK1414 > FGC51088 > FGC 51041 > FGC51036 or simply L-FGC51036.

1. Odyssey of Y - Act 1.  25,000 BCE - Baradostian ibex hunters of the Ice Age Zagros mountains (present day Iran).
2. Odyssey of Y - Act 2.  18,000 BCE - Zarzian hunter-gatherers of the Zagros
3. Odyssey of Y - Act 3.    7,500 BCE - Aceramic Neolithic. Pioneer agriculturalists of the Zagros.
4. Odyssey of Y - Act 4.    3,800 BCE - Chalcolithic teller at Godin Tepe in the Zagros.
5. Odyssey of Y - Act 5.    2,050 BCE - Bronze Age smith at Bakr Awa, Shahrizor Plain of the Zagros. Visits a Ur III City.
6. Odyssey of Y - Act 6.    1,500 BCE - Hurrian merchant takes the lineage westwards to Aleppo, Syria, now under Mitanni control.
7. Odyssey of Y - Act 7.         64 BCE - Temple treasurer at Baalat Gebal, Byblos, Roman Syria.  Two alternative routes next follow, Option A and Option B.
8. Odyssey of Y - Act 8 Option A  235 CE - Early Migration Hypothesis (Roman Empire). A bureaucrat with Levantine roots is posted to Roman Britannia. Political events drives him to seek refuge in the Thames Valley.
9. Odyssey of Y - Act 9 Option A  1430 CE - Early Migration Hypothesis (continued).  Johannes de la Broke at a manor court.
10. Odyssey of Y - Act 8 Option B  1490 CE - Late Migration Hypothesis (Venetian Galley). Fishermen and mariners at Beirut, travels by the route of Venetian galleys to Venice and  onto Southampton, Early Tudor England.
11. Odyssey of Y - Act 9 Option B  1530 CE -  Late Migration Hypothesis (continued). Mariner's son and a wool merchant, takes the lineage from Southampton docks, to the wool producing Hampshire and Berkshire Downs.
12. Odyssey of Y - Act 10.     1746 CE - Recorded genealogy. John Brooker, Copyhold tenant farmer of Long Wittenham in Berkshire, England.
13. Odyssey of Y - Act 11.      1916 CE - My great grandfather on the Western Front in World War One.
14. Odyssey of Y - Act 12. Finale.        - Summary and rationale for my hypothesis that my "ghost" Y-DNA lineage L-FGC51036 remained for millennia in the Zagros region of South West Asia, before transferring to the Levant, where it later hopped onto Venetian galleys, to leave a son in Southampton, England.

Ovum charts the journey of my mitochondrial DNA, from the Levant 25,000 years ago, to my great grandmother at Southwood Hall Farm in Norfolk. It begins as mtDNA Haplogroup H (Helena) and grows over time to H6a1a8 (F8693412).

1. Ovum - Act 1.    25,000 BCE - Helena, Ice-Age hunter-gatherer mother in the refuge of the Levant.
2. Ovum - Act 2.      4,500 BCE - H6/a, early pastoralists and fishing on the Volga (present day South Russian Federation).
3. Ovum - Act 3.      3,000 BCE - H6a1 widow in Chalcolithic Yamnaya culture, leading her herding folk westwards towards the Pannonian plain (present day Moldovia to Hungary).
4. Ovum - Act 4.      2,200 BCE - Hypothesis for the movement of my lineage, and H6a1/a woman in Bronze Age Únětice culture at Moravian Gate (present day Czech Republic). Two alternative routes next follow - Option A and Option B
5. Ovum - Act 5 Option A.  930 BCE - Late Bronze Age Hypothesis (Migration Wave). Woman of Urnfield Culture (Central France) migrates northwards towards coast with English Channel.
6. Ovum - Act 6 Option A.  890 BCE - Late Bronze Age Hypothesis (continued) H6a1a8 woman in Eastern English Fens.
7. Ovum - Act 5 Option B   800 BCE - Hallstatt Iron Age Hypothesis (High status bride) in continental Early Iron Age Hallstatt culture. A hypothesis on movement and on the Celts.
8. Ovum - Act 6 Option B   550 BCE - Hallstatt Iron Age Hypothesis (continued) Elite bride moves from the Rhine to South East Britain, the British Earlier Iron-Age.
9. Ovum - Act 7.             55 CE - Iceni woman in the Brecks of South East Woman, during the transition of the Late Iron-Age La Tène culture to Early Romano-British. And a discussion on the Iceni and the Boudiccan Rebellion.
10. Ovum - Act 8.           440 CE - A girl born in late Romano-British culture, transfers through her lifetime to an early Anglo-Saxon grandmother, outside the ruins of Venta Icenorum, a Roman City in East Anglia.
11. Ovum - Act 9.         1349 CE - Medieval villager in South Norfolk faces loss, grief and hardship from the Great Death of the Plague.
12. Ovum - Act 10.       1661 CE - Recorded genealogy.  Generations of yeomanry in the South Norfolk parish of Carleton Rode. Conformist Anglicans and Worstead spinners.
13. Ovum - Act 11.        1871 CE - Restored portraits, agricultural labourers and rural poverty. A great grandmother from personal memory. Family tales.
14. Ovum - Act 12 Finale.        - My Norfolk mother, the wedding of her parents, ancestral resilience. A research link between my mitochondrial DNA and a resistance to Alzheimer's. 

Zen and the Art of the Haplogroup

​Haplogroup testing has slipped somewhat into the shadows following the surge of general autosomal DNA testing. It is a pity, though I suspect haplogroup testing will see a significant resurrection in the future.

​General genetic tests—those examining recombined nuclear DNA in the autosomes (and occasionally the X chromosome)—work well at a continental level and are sometimes slightly more refined. However, their ability to define lineages much deeper than that is often grossly exaggerated. They are also limited to a span of only several generations; beyond that, an individual's specific ancestral signature is inevitably washed out by the tides of recombination.

​I believe you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

​In comparison, testing for Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups shines in its logic and scientific rigour. Whilst restricted to only one or two narrow lines of descent, these genetic markers are incredibly resilient, carrying us back through the millennia.

​Integrated Ancestral Studies

These studies are not restricted to autosomal DNA alone. They embrace recorded genealogy, genetic matching, and local social and economic history. They draw upon landscape history, prehistory, archaeology, topography, architecture, and the broader context of evolutionary life on Earth.

It is, ultimately, a celebration of the ancestors. It is time travel.

Egella, as visualized by Gemini AI

Another two years. Here I am again, starting over. This time things will be different. I've had to learn to let go of my past, of my old life. Living in the past is my poison. Therefore there may be an irony that I now return to my creative writing. I am working on a new manuscript. A follow up to my prior unpublished, unshared effort. Hopefully I have learned lessons. I mean that in more than one way. I have learned acceptance.

The above image represents one character in my story. She is Egella, a frog-witch of the Leva. You can see, she isn't of our age. The setting of the Book is Eastern England, as it was long before it was known as such, more than 6,000 years ago. Egella is just one of the protagonists. But I can't say more than that. Already I reveal too much.

But I'm still here on Earth. 21st century.