DNA

Very little achieved apart from a fruit cake for the rest of the family and a nice veggie tagine that for once didn’t disintegrate into mush (the chestnuts were especially good.) I shared that with a friend one evening while exchanging news of current frustrations and potential disasters. It does look as though my son has made the right move, taking the redundancy package and maximising his freelance work whilst looking for a more lucrative position. He did it with such dignity and grace, offering help with the transition (the firm was surprised and shocked to find he was really going!) and even writing an email to head Office thanking them for nine years of pleasurable employment.  Thank goodness he has his fathers equanimous genes to balance my volatile ones! (Never thought I’d get ‘equanimous’ into a sentence!)

He is also making use of the time doing work on his house which will the boys and dogs is rather like the Forth Bridge, in constant need of attention.

So that’s OK then; for the moment. Other storm clouds are gathering elsewhere.

A book lent to me by a friend ‘The Scots: A Genetic Journey’ by Alistair Moffat and James Wilson, has been engrossing and reminded me how much I enjoy prehistory. In the days when we took an extramural course in prehistory at London University genetics have greatly expanded (and confused) the knowledge of human evolution. I did get a bit overwhelmed by information that I could scarcely understand, and it got worse when I checked it all out on the net afterwards! two facts stuck: firstly that according to Alan Wilson all human races began in Africa, Mitochondrial Eve  walking out of the Dark Continent c.150,000 years ago bearing the mitochondrial DNA  most closely linked to all lineages in humans today. Which caused some to call Africa the garden of Eden. the discovery of the Y chromosome seems to support this suggesting that all modern European DNA derives from Africa, c.100,000 BP. I think that’s amazing. 

Until the last Ice Age it’s probably that only Neanderthals existed in Northern Europe, some surviving to flee to ‘Refuges’ in southern Europe, where they eventually will have met up with Cro-Magnon Man. Some Homo sapiens certainly predated the Ice Age, traveling into Europe via the Middle East. One man on Islay must have been astounded to hear that his DNA linked him in a direct Y-chromosomal line with an ancient Y lineage in Mesopotamia - modern day Iraq on their trek out of Africa!  As the author says: ‘It is a wonderfully refreshing, ironic, and redressing balance for centuries of racial prejudice to think that Homo sapiens, and not so sapiens, originated amongst people once routinely and widely believed to be sub-human.’

Scotland was under a mile of ice for 15,000 years and it isn’t until 11,000 PB that its colonisation begins, then a second ice age caused by the melting of ice on the North American landmass turned off the Gulf Stream causing snow storms, a rapid fall in temperatures and before long another deep layer of ice over northern europe. The first pioneers to make it back to the top of the world came from the areas known as the Ice Age refuges, Southern France and Northern Spain. 

Well, I could go on - and on. Why this should give me comfort I have no idea. The life span of a human compared to the unimaginable aeons that there has been life on the planet isn’t exactly cosy, it’s like seeing billions of stars on a dark night. We are breathtakingly insignificance. 

Unless there is a spiritual dimension - which I’ve been exploring again with the 'Oversoul Seven Trilogy.' More of that next time. I need some fresh air and an earthly perspective. Coffee and ... oh someone give me strength to refuse the almond croissant.