by Karin Bojs
My European Family
Also available in the Bloomsbury Sigma series:
Sex on Earth by Jules Howard
p53: The Gene that Cracked the Cancer Code by Sue Armstrong
Atoms Under the Floorboards by Chris Woodford
Spirals in Time by Helen Scales
Chilled by Tom Jackson
A is for Arsenic by Kathryn Harkup
Breaking the Chains of Gravity by Amy Shira Teitel
Suspicious Minds by Rob Brotherton
Herding Hemingway’s Cats by Kat Arney
Electronic Dreams by Tom Lean
Sorting the Beef from the Bull by Richard Evershed and Nicola Temple
Death on Earth by Jules Howard
The Tyrannosaur Chronicles by David Hone
Soccermatics by David Sumpter
Big Data by Timandra Harkness
Goldilocks and the Water Bears by Louisa Preston
Science and the City by Laurie Winkless
Bring Back the King by Helen Pilcher
Furry Logic by Matin Durrani and Liz Kalaugher
Built on Bones by Brenna Hassett
To Anita and Göran, from whom I inherited all my genes.
My European Family
The FIRST 54,000 years
Karin Bojs
Contents
Introduction: The Funeral
PART 1: THE HUNTERS
Chapter 1: The Troll Child: 54,000 Years Ago
Chapter 2: Neanderthals in Leipzig
Chapter 3: The Flute Players
Chapter 4: First on the Scene in Europe
Chapter 5: Mammoths in Brno
Chapter 6: Cro-Magnon
Chapter 7: The First Dog
Chapter 8: Doggerland
Chapter 9: The Ice Age Ends
Chapter 10: Dark Skin, Blue Eyes
Chapter 11: Climate and Forests
Chapter 12: Sami?
Chapter 13: Pottery Makes its Appearance
Chapter 14: The Farmers Arrive
PART 2: THE FARMERS
Chapter 15: Syria
Chapter 16: The Boat to Cyprus
Chapter 17: The First Beer
Chapter 18: The Farmers’ Westward Voyages
Chapter 19: The Homes Built on the Graves of the Dead
Chapter 20: Clashes in Pilsen and Mainz
Chapter 21: Sowing and Sunrise
Chapter 22: Farmers Arrive in Skåne
Chapter 23: Ötzi the Iceman
Chapter 24: The Falbygden Area
Chapter 25: Hunters’ and Farmers’ Genes
PART 3: THE INDO-EUROPEANS
Chapter 26: The First Stallion
Chapter 27: DNA Sequences Provide Links with the East
Chapter 28: Battleaxes
Chapter 29: Bell Beakers, Celts and Stonehenge
Chapter 30: The Nebra Sky Disc in Halle
Chapter 31: The Rock Engravers
Chapter 32: Iron and the Plague
Chapter 33: Am I a Viking?
Chapter 34: The Mothers
Chapter 35: The Legacy of Hitler and Stalin
The Tree and the Spring
Questions and Answers about DNA
References, Further Reading and Travel Tips
Acknowledgements
Plates
Index
INTRODUCTION
The Funeral
My mother, Anita Bojs, died while I was working on this book. Many friends and acquaintances came to the funeral, considerably more than I had dared to hope for. But there were only a few family members. All of us fitted into one pew at the front: my brother and me, our partners, and three smartly dressed grandchildren.
It was early summer, and the mauve lilac was in bloom in the park next to Gothenburg’s Vasa Church. Together we sang the hymn ‘Den blomstertid nu kommer’ (‘The blossom time is coming’), followed by ‘Härlig är jorden’ (‘Fair is Creation’). I had chosen the latter because it includes two lines that I find particularly comforting: ‘Ages come and ages pass / Generation follows upon generation.’
When the time came for the memorial speeches, I addressed myself particularly to Anita’s grandchildren. I wanted them to feel proud of their grandmother and her origins, despite the circumstances.
The grandmother they had known was elderly and scarred by life. Her promising career had come to an end when she was still in her fifties. By then she already had a long history of serious problems including illness, divorce, conflicts and addiction.
That was why I told her grandchildren and the other people at the funeral about the first half of my mother’s life. I told them about the student who scored top marks at school and landed a place to study medicine at the Karolinska Institute – although she was a girl and came from a family of modest means. I told them about her childhood home above the little school in the industrial village where my grandmother Berta taught. That home had been poor in financial terms, but it was all the richer in companionship, music, art, literature and the thirst for knowledge.
I quoted from a diary I had found among my mother’s things. ‘Top Secret’ was written on the cover in a childish hand. In the diary she had written about her summer holidays in the province of Värmland, at the home of her grandmother, my great-grandmother Karolina Turesson. It was just 40 kilometres (25 miles) away from the border with Norway, where the Second World War was raging. Yet the description of the cousins playing together on the jetty at glittering Lake Värmeln was so bright and full of beauty in retrospect.
I never met my maternal grandmother or great-grandmother. With all the problems there were in my troubled family, I seldom met any relatives at all. That may be why I have spent so much time wondering who these relatives were and where they came from. I have wanted to know more since I was a 10-year-old.
On my father’s side, at least I met my grandmother Hilda and my grandfather Eric a few times. My visits to them are among my happiest memories. Their home in Kalmar smelt so good. There were paintings everywhere, and my grandfather had decorated doors, walls and furniture with pictures of his own. Both grandparents were fond of telling stories from their childhood, but they rarely said anything about family further back in the past.
Now, as an adult, expert genealogists have helped me to trace Berta’s, Hilda’s and Eric’s ancestry over many generations. When I was young, I thought it was rather nerdy to research your family history. But as an adult I now have far more respect for the activity. I understand how a fascination with one’s forebears is an important component of many of the world’s cultures. In many of the ethnic groups that lack a written tradition, people can rattle off their ancestry for at least 10 generations – about as far back as successful family history researchers in Sweden. The Bible sets out lengthy genealogies, the oldest of which were written down over 2,000 years ago, having being passed on by oral tradition long before that.
Methods for tracing one’s ancestry have moved on since biblical times. In fact, I would say the current unprecedented developments are nothing less than quantum leaps. About 50 years ago, a few pioneering researchers began to compare blood groups and individual genetic markers in order to be able to identify family connections and historical migrations. At that time, the DNA molecule had only been known for a few years, and the relevant knowledge was shared by a very limited group of researchers. It was not until 1995 that it became possible to examine all the DNA of a tiny bacterium. Since then, progress has been astonishingly rapid. In fact, biotechnology is undergoing even more dramatic developments than information technology, although advances in computing, telephones and the internet are more visible to the general public. IT people speak of ‘Moore’s law’, according to which computers double their capacity every two years. T
he capacity to map a DNA sequence is advancing much faster than that.
A few years ago, it became possible to analyse the whole of a person’s genetic make-up in a matter of hours. Researchers can even analyse DNA from people who have been dead for tens of thousands – and, in one or two cases, hundreds of thousands – of years. An analysis that would have cost tens of millions of pounds a decade or two ago is now obtainable for less than £50. Thanks to lower prices, this technology has also begun to spread beyond the world of professional research. Even private individuals researching their family tree have started to use DNA as a tool. Small variations in the DNA sequence make it possible to identify unknown first, second and third cousins, and even family members who lived a very long time ago – during the last Ice Age and even further back.
I have followed developments in DNA technology as a science journalist over the last 18 years, for most of which I have been science editor at Dagens Nyheter, one of Sweden’s leading daily newspapers. I have witnessed a revolution in the technology used in criminology and medical and biological research, and I have seen how DNA technology is now beginning to contribute to archaeology and history as well.
This book is an attempt to gather together these different threads: professional researchers’ latest findings about the early history of Europe, and my own particular family history. My research has involved travelling in 10 countries, reading several hundred scientific studies and interviewing some 70 researchers.
I am now beginning to be able to discern the threads that link my maternal great-grandmother Karolina, my paternal grandmother Hilda and my paternal grandfather Eric, and events that took place a long way back in history. Most of these threads are shared with a large part of the population of Europe.
Let us begin with something that happened near the Sea of Galilee, about 54,000 years ago.
PART ONE
The Hunters
Annika gave birth to Märta, who gave birth to Karin.
Karin was the mother of Annika, who herself had a daughter named Karin.
Karin’s daughter was Kajsa, and Kajsa gave birth to Karolina.
Karolina gave birth to Berta, who gave birth to Anita.
Anita gave birth to Karin.
Chapter One
The Troll Child: 54,000 Years Ago
The woman who was to become my ancestor strode swiftly down the mountainside. She was in a hurry to reach the lake in the valley, which we today know as the Sea of Galilee. At that time the lake covered a far larger area. Contemporary geologists have retrospectively named it Lake Lisan (‘tongue’) on account of its elongated shape. What name the woman and her group gave to that great expanse of water is something we shall never know.
She was young and slender with curly black hair, and her skin was a dark brown. She wore nothing but a twisted cord about her hips, from which dangled strings of shells dyed red and green. They swung in time with her strides. Between her naked breasts hung a strip of leather bearing an amulet – the small figure of a bird, made of gazelle horn.
On the mountain the woman had met a man whose seed was now in her belly.
The man was about the same height as the woman, but much heavier and more powerfully built. Their encounter may have been violent, in which case she could hardly have been in a position to defend herself effectively. His face was not like that of anyone the woman had previously encountered; his nose was much larger and broader, and the whole of his face seemed to jut forward. His eyes were brown, just like hers, but his skin was lighter and his hair straight. Above all, he had a characteristic scent, which she had not noticed until he came close. It was an acrid, alien smell.
Although the man and the woman were so unalike, a child began to grow within her. By the time she was due to give birth, winter had come. Though the small band of people she belonged to were still on the shores of Lake Lisan, they had moved a few dozen kilometres southwards, towards their old homeland. They put up some simple windbreaks along a cliff face, hoping the creatures they had found living in the new country would leave them in peace. The Others – or the trolls, as they sometimes called them.
A chill rain fell. Now the ground was bare of the red tulips of spring time: nothing but a few dry thistles remained along the shoreline. The birth was difficult, but both the woman and her baby survived. It was a boy – an unusually big, robust child. My ancestor wrapped him in a gazelle hide and laid him carefully on a bed of dried grass.
Three days later the shaman performed a ritual, dancing frenetically until she made contact with the gods, while the other members of the group sat around the fire chanting. On returning from the world of the gods, the shaman had much to say about the child’s future. She foretold that he would have many descendants. They would be dispersed in all directions, even to the ends of the earth. ‘He shall be called the son of the gods, and the gods will give you strength enough to raise him,’ the shaman told the young mother.
It was most unusual for her to lavish such extraordinary words on newborn babies, but the shaman was a wise woman. She could see that the woman who was to become my ancestor would need to have a special vocation conferred on her if the child was to survive. The group could not afford to lose any more children, or there would be an end to their presence in the new country.
Fortunately, the boy turned out robust and strong. He had a healthy appetite, first for his mother’s milk, then for shreds of meat and plants. He drank out of brooks, and never even suffered from an upset stomach. But he was not quite like other children in appearance. His skin was lighter. His chin was smaller, and it receded towards his throat. His eyebrow ridges were more pronounced. When his hair started to grow longer, it hung straight. And when his mother was out of earshot, the other members of the group often called him the ‘Troll Child’. It was said with affection, but they had their suspicions about his origins.
After a while they plucked up the courage to return to the mountains in the north, even though The Others were there. The region we now call Galilee provided such favourable living conditions, abounding in gazelles, aurochs and other game. They found a fine, spacious limestone cave that provided shelter in winter. Only rarely did they glimpse one of The Others, and that was nearly always at a long distance. On one or two occasions they got within hearing range. The Others had a strange way of speaking, and it was impossible to make head or tail of their language. Their garments were plain and unadorned.
The Troll Child was not at all quick in starting to talk, nor did he enjoy stories as ordinary children did. Yet he was at least as skilful with flint, wood and animal hides as anyone else. He just needed to be shown what to do.
During this time the winters became unusually cold, wet and harsh. Many small children fell sick, and several died. But the Troll Child thrived, growing stronger and stronger. The group took good care of him. They gave him extra attention, as was their wont with anyone who was a little different. Moreover – though they never actually voiced this fear – they were anxious that someone might come and take him away from them.
A few years later the woman died, without ever having told anyone about the man she had met that spring day when the tulips bloomed red on the mountain slopes. But the words of the shaman came true. The Troll Child did have a large number of descendants, and they were dispersed in all directions, even to the ends of the earth.
Chapter Two
Neanderthals in Leipzig
Most of the human beings alive today have one or two ‘troll children’ among our forebears. A small proportion of our genetic material comes from ‘The Others’ – the people we now know as Neanderthals. This share is slightly less than 2 per cent for people of European descent like myself – the same proportion as if my grandmother’s grandmother had had a grandfather who was a Neanderthal. It is as though a ‘troll child’, fathered by a Neanderthal, were the father of my grandmother’s grandmother.
Naturally that isn’t the case. The father of my grandmother’s grandmother lived in the ni
neteenth century. The interbreeding of Neanderthals and modern humans, however, occurred much earlier – about 54,000 years ago.
Yet the traits inherited from the Neanderthals have remained with us for thousands of years because the population was so tiny at that time. This meant that a few instances of interbreeding with Neanderthals had a major impact. Moreover, some of the characteristics associated with the Neanderthals were useful, improving people’s chances of surviving and having children of their own.
The scene of our sexual interaction with Neanderthals is likely to have been the Middle East, a corridor through which all humans passed on their way from Africa to other parts of the world. It may well have been Galilee, which archaeological finds show to have been inhabited concurrently by modern humans and Neanderthals. Alternatively, it may have been a little further to the north, possibly in what is now Lebanon.
The Neanderthals were the first to arrive in the region, their ancestors having left Africa several hundred thousand years before us. Traces of Neanderthals can be found from Spain in the west to Siberia in the east. One of the first finds was made in the mid-nineteenth century, in Germany’s Neander Valley, hence the name ‘Neanderthals’.
From the discovery in the Neander Valley right up to the last few decades, most researchers believed that today’s Europeans were the Neanderthals’ grandchildren, figuratively speaking. They thought we had developed here, isolated from other peoples for a long period of time, and had thus developed a typically European appearance, with light skin and straight hair. People in Asia and Africa were thought to have had separate developmental histories; Asians, for example, were believed to be descended from other prehistoric peoples such as Peking Man and Java Man. These ideas, known as the multi-regional hypothesis, are largely mistaken. Yet they do contain a few small grains of truth, as revealed by new DNA technology.
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