Mapping the path out of Africa, our genes and ourselves

Hamida Ghafour

• Last Updated: September 14. 2009 10:03PM UAE / September 14. 2009 6:03PM GMT

In the last 24 hours I’ve been coming to terms with some news that has cast my life and my identity in a completely new light.

A few weeks ago, I swabbed my cheek and sent it to a DNA lab in Texas for testing. It was part of research for a magazine story I’m working on about National Geographic’s incredible project to chart the migration of humankind out of Africa more than 150,000 years ago.

According to the scientists and population geneticists on the team, every human being on the planet can trace their ancestors back to one woman who lived in the Great Rift Valley, which is in present-day Kenya.

Over tens of thousands of years, small groups of families and clans moved slowly out of Africa to follow game and gather food. They crossed through Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula or across the Bab al Mandab, the outlet of the Red Sea. From there, they populated the Middle East and moved through Turkey and Europe. Other groups eventually migrated went to Asia, Australia, and North and South America.

Members of the public can participate in the genographic project by sending cheek swabs to the lab. By examining mitochondrial DNA from women and the Y-chromosome DNA from men, comparing genetic mutations among various population groups, geneticists can get an idea of the timing and trajectory of your ancestors’ migration across the planet.

My family traces our ancestors back to the 16th century invasion of Afghanistan by Babur Shah, the founder of the Mogul empire. We probably came from the central Asian steppe.

Afghanistan, of course, has been invaded time over time for thousands of years. The blood, the dust, the mountains and the hardiness of my Afghan forefathers have been woven into my DNA, even if my family left 28 years ago.

Or so I thought.

It turns out I am European. Perhaps even Greek. I belong to a branch of the family tree called haplogroup H which dominates the European population. My ancestors apparently migrated to Europe about 15,000 years ago. In Rome and Athens alone, the frequency of group H is 40 per cent of the entire population.

How we ended up in Afghanistan is still a matter of speculation. We know Alexander the Great’s armies invaded Afghanistan and crossed the Hindu Kush. Perhaps I am a descendant of one of these Macedonians?

It will be fascinating to watch scientists explore this gap in our knowledge about our own histories. I may even cook some moussaka this weekend.


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For decades the Bermuda Triangle – a vast triangular-shaped area of ocean bounded by Bermuda at one corner and Miami, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico at the others – has been considered to be governed by some mysterious, supernatural force which has caused planes to drop from the sky and ships to sink without rational explanation.

There were many television specials on the topic in the 1980s, not infrequently narrated by William Shatner, with his low voice intoning that the causes of the crashes could not be fathomed by the human mind as spooky music reached a crescendo in the background.

Well, it turns out there is an explanation.

Two of the most puzzling aeroplane disappearances from the 1940s have been solved, according to a new BBC series which investigated the crashes.

One, a Avro Tudor IV, owned by British South American Airways, which crashed in 1948, likely suffered from catastrophic technical failure because it was badly designed. A second, also an Avro Tudor, crashed in 1949 probably because it ran out of fuel.

Pretty humdrum stuff.

That’s the trouble with modern science. It can kill any sense of mystery.



hghafour@thenational.ae