Back To Africa

The Genographic Project Aims To Map Humankind's Migration Through The Ages

(CBS)  Pierre Zalloua, the project's chief investigator in Beirut, hasn't just been taking samples of DNA; he's been taking cover from F-16's. Zalloua, who is Lebanese, says that the recent turmoil in the region has tested his deepest hope for this project: to unify different people in the region through shared genetic histories.

"I came to change the sad reality in the Middle East and to tell people how close we really are to each other," he says. "The fighting has dealt Lebanon and me personally a big blow."

But Zalloua plows through the dangers in the pursuit of science. He and Wells recently journeyed to another hotspot, Chad, because geneticists know very little about the lineages in central Africa. There they met with the Toubou tribe in the Tibesti Mountains as well as another indigenous group in the south, where a dying language (Laal) is spoken by fewer than 200 people. Zalloua says roughly 300 individuals across Chad were sampled.

The success of the Genographic Project hinges on collecting samples not from people like me, but from indigenous groups like the Toubou. That’s because the world’s remaining indigenous peoples' ethnic identities are isolated; therefore, their key genetic markers (unlike mine) have remained unaltered for hundreds of generations.

"They really give us a glimpse of our ancestors," Wells says, "because they've preserved their genetic characteristic."

(That very notion of preservation has at least one group less than enthusiastic about the project.)

But is the Genographic Project actually writing an accurate history?

Dr. Joanna Mountain, a Stanford University geneticist, says that much of the project's science is speculative. For example, dating Y chromosome lineages with precision is virtually impossible - and gauging the validity of the study's findings can only be done when they are published.

Still, Mountain, who has worked extensively in east and central Africa, says the goal of all anthropological geneticists is diversity, and to that end, collecting samples from indigenous groups is key. While some remote communities used to regard scientists as blood-thirsty vampires, she says they are now more trusting.

"The excitement overwhelms the fears and concerns," Mountain says, citing Nelson Mandela's decision to trace his maternal line through DNA as an example of the comfort level changing. "People now want to know their ancestry."

Wells says the project has taken great pains to reach out with indigenous groups and create an open dialogue. When the project launched, National Geographic established the Legacy Fund, which uses proceeds from the project to help preserve and protect indigenous populations. Wells says that to date, roughly $2 million has been raised from the DNA kits sold on the project’s Web site.

I'm just one of 150,000 people who have purchased a kit so far. Wells says that by the end of the project's first year, investigators at the project's regional centers had collected roughly 9,000 samples around the world. He expects that tally to top 100,000 by the end of the study.

The scientist also tells me that because of its high frequency in Western Europe, my lineage (R1b) is quite common in the U.S.; in fact, Wells himself is an R1B guy. Initially, that knowledge makes me feel ordinary in the grand scheme of humankind migration. But, when it comes down to it, which is more intriguing - that one of my ancestors toiled for a French general? Or that my distant uncles rolled the dice and ventured out of Africa, introduced technology to Western Europe, produced innovative cave paintings, overwhelmed the Neanderthals and conquered the wooly mammoth along the way?

I'll be telling version number two from now on.