The Seven Daughters He extracted proof of genetic continuity between people living today and the hunters of the

Upper Palaeolithic He traced these genetics back to the beginning of history The DNA he studied from thousands of Europeans had shown him the genetic link to the Palaeolithic hunters He added Y-Chromosome data, and that gave the same information He identified seven major genetic European clusters Within each, the DNA sequences were either identical or very similar Over 90% of modern Europeans fit into one of these seven groups In order to age the clusters Averaged the number of mutations found in the modern members of each cluster The more mutations, the older the clan/cluster The seven clusters had ages between 45,000 and 10,000 years This tells us the length of time it has taken for all the mutations to have arisen from a single founder sequence The single founder sequence at the root of each of the seven clusters was carried by one individual woman So the ages given to the clusters are actually when each of the seven women had lived. The seven women Sykes gave them names based upon the letter each cluster had been classified by Ursula, Xenia, Helena, Velda, Tara, Katrine, and Jasmine Qualifications You needed to have daughters Because he was following mtDNA, which is passed from mother to daughter You need to have had at least two daughters The clan mother is the most recent maternal ancestor that all the members of a clan have in common If you have 10 million living members and trace back their lineages, you would see the maternal lines slowly joining up The lines would converge on the maternal grandmother, and then her mothers mother, etc. Each generation there would be few people in the clan who had maternal descendants Eventually, there would be only two women in the clan who could claim to have maternal descendants living The maternal lines of these two women would converge on a single woman, and to be in that position, she had to have two daughters The clan mothers werent the only women around at the time

But she is the only woman who is connected through the unbroken maternal thread to the present day Other lines existed but died out when a woman didnt have daughters The exact times and places that these women lived in is open to debate still Sykes estimated their lives by summing the mutations that accumulated for each clan The locations were distilled from the present-day geographical location of the clans and their branches The geographical origin for a clan isnt necessarily the place where it is most commonly found It would be the place where the clan is the most varied IE. Pacific, the most common clan in Polynesia didnt originate there It is common, but there is no diversity within the clan in Polynesia The origin of the clan is more likely further west- closer to Indonesia The clan isnt common there, but there is more variation within it there Only a fraction of the population moved to Polynesia, so the diversity dropped In Taiwan, the diversity is higher even though it isnt common, making it likely that Taiwan is an even earlier origin than Indonesia In Europe, there is more complexity, but the same rules apply Clan origins are likely to be where there is more genetic diversity This has to be realistic however, the mother of a 20,000 year old clan cannot come from Scotland Sykes studied the genetics, archaeological and climatic past He looked at vegetation and tools made form stone and bone He studied the archaeological sites for what our ancestors diet may have been These pieces of evidence combine with genetics to recreate the lives of the seven women

Ursula Ursula was born 45,000 years ago, making hers the oldest of the maternal lineages She was born at the foot of Mount Parnassus, close to the Greek city of Delphi Neither of these sites would have had those names at the time She was the second child, her older brother was killed by a leopard when he was 2 Her mother was part of a hunter-gatherer group Their clan traveled by foot, moving up the coast from season to season They hunted bison, and had a variety of hunting tactics After Ursula was born, her mother had only a few days to recover before she had to return to helping the clan find food The clan picked a site where Neanderthals had lived

The relations between the Palaeolithic Hunter Gatherers and the Neanderthals was civil The Neanderthals tended to avoid the Hunter-Gatherers The weapons of the Neanderthals werent as sophisticated The hunter-gatherers looked different from the Neanderthals

Ursula was carried by her mother on the food gathering rounds Seasons passed, and different foods were gathered in each season Autumn- hazel and beech nuts, berries and mushrooms Summer- spent in the mountains, hunting hare and deer Winter- spent in the plains before moving to spring camp Spring- lean, there were no fruits, they relied on hunting. Some years were better than others, other years people starved Ursula survived. Her mother died at the age of 29, Ursula was 12 Her mother died from blood poisoning when she broke her leg and the wound became infected Ursula was adopted by one of her aunts As she grew, she gained the attention of the men, who would show off to gain her attention and give her gifts She had to choose between her suitors, and chose the man who brought her ornaments When she was 15, Ursula had a baby girl, nursing her and carrying her on her back as she foraged Four years later, she had another girl Both girls lived long, and each of them gave her a grand-daughter Ursula became weak, and asked for the clan to leave her in the cave where she and her children were born Today, about 11 percent of modern Europeans are the direct maternal descendants of Ursula The clan is particularly well represented in western Britain and Scandinavia