Did you ever wonder where you came from? I know what you’re thinking and that’s not what I mean. I assume if you’re old enough to read this you know where you came from. I’m talking about ancestors, way back to when the first one-celled creatures crawled out of the Paleozoic sea. They didn’t care anything about molecules, DNA, or creating offspring who one day would grow up to be couch potatoes. They were looking for some good beachfront property and promptly shriveled up in the hot sun. But they kept coming and eventually evolved enough to create fudge shops and screen-printed, fringed satin pillows.
My wife and I had been curious about our ancestry, so we checked out a few places that could analyze our DNA to find out our lineage. We picked 23andMe because we didn’t have to cut off an appendage and mail it in as required for other companies. All we had to do was send a little tube of saliva and the prerequisite funds.
Although I discovered I’m 99.2% European, composed of Scandinavian, French, German, Spanish, Salami, Iberian, Austrian, Velociraptor and a bunch of other stuff, I had two surprises: A couple of little brightly colored blips on my otherwise blue chromosome chart, indicated some Native American and southeast Asian DNA, which showed up either around 1710 or 1967. The Native American blip is tiny, probably because my male ancestor scored with my attractive, smart, funny female Native American ancestor and quickly set up a home for her in a beautiful, rock and clay-filled Indian reservation, then ran out on her to sew his wild oats with a southeast Asian who made good egg rolls.
My maternal haplogroup is H3. Okay. Whatever that is, I share it with Marie Antoinette, prince Phillip, Copernicus, and Smokey Bear. It basically means we all had a common female ancestor 18,000 years ago, who ventured north out of the Middle East at the end of the Ice Age to sell Avon products.
I found out, and this is true, that I have some Neanderthal in me. 23andMe stated this is common and widespread, but that I have a bit more than average. This could explain why many times I gave in to the overwhelming urge to whack my dates over the head with a large club or Summer sausage and drag them into caves, a practice largely frowned on today by members of the #metoo movement. But it was prior to women’s liberation and none ever complained, which I suppose was because they had some Neanderthal in them and just took it as standard operating procedure. Actually, in the past couple of years, archaeologists discovered that Neanderthals weren’t grunting, Trump-like beasts, but were artistic and crafted beads, trinkets and novelties inserted in Crackerjack boxes.
The rest of the non-European parts of me are crammed into the remaining 0.8% of my DNA. Well, 0.75% actually, because there’s 0.05% nobody can figure out. I suspect it may be Cheetos.