Thanks to minor genetic mutations that have occurred over tens of thousands of years of human history and are shared by large groups of people, scientists can trace the migrations of early human beings from Africa to the far corners of the world. Population geneticist Spencer Wells, the director of the Genographic Project, writes about this research in "Out of Africa." For the July issue, dozens of Vanity Fair staff members and contributors participated in the Genographic Project, which collects DNA data from vast numbers of people in order to plot the migration patterns of our earliest human ancestors. Here's a look at the ancestry of Bono, Graydon Carter, and other V.F. staff members.
Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter's maternal ancestors were part of the second wave of migration out of Africa and into the Middle East, some 45,000 or 50,000 years ago. Perhaps 10,000 years ago, the members of this group were among the first agriculturalists in the Middle East's Fertile Crescent. As the population grew, Carter's ancestors branched out in several directions, with his dominant ancestral strain coming from northeastern Europe.
The maternal ancestors of Africa-issue guest editor Bono were, like Graydon's, part of the second major migratory wave out of Africa. They moved northward out of the Near East, entering Europe around 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. During the worst of the last ice age, about 15,000 years ago, these ancestors were pushed into Iberia. After the ice age, Bono's ancestors moved northward and westward to populate the British Isles and Scandinavia.
Contributing editor Christopher Hitchens's maternal ancestry is of the most common Western European haplogroup, accounting for about 50 percent of the population with European ancestry. This group left Africa during the second wave of migration, spreading through the Middle East and—during the last ice age, some 30,000 to 40,000 years ago—into Northern Europe. During the worst of the ice age, these ancestors took refuge in southern climes, but as conditions improved, the group expanded back into Central and Northern Europe.
Deputy editor Bruce Handy's maternal ancestors were part of the first major wave of migration out of East Africa and among the first humans to enter Central and East Asia, traveling along the southern coast of Asia. As the population began to move inland and northward some 30,000 years ago, Handy's ancestors made their way up to Central Asia. Today, members of his ancestral family tree are largely limited to the Siberian population.
Assistant editor Carolyn Bielfeldt's maternal ancestors spread throughout Central Asia and undertook the initial colonization of the Americas. Her lineage is part of the second wave of migration out of Africa, 45,000 to 50,000 years ago, which reached out to the Middle East, western Eurasia, and East Africa. Carolyn's haplogroup is found in as much as 25 percent of some American populations, but her ancestral lineage left no trail in East Asia. How her ancestors got to the Americas is the sort of question the Genographic Project is attempting to answer.