Adam's Curse: A Future Without Men by Bryan Sykes

Author:Bryan Sykes [Sykes, Bryan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9788374696333
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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THE Y - C H R O M O S O M E OF S O M H A I R L E MOR

Each piece of mitochondrial DNA, each Y-chromosome, has its own story to tell, of a battle fought long ago, of a heroic journey in times past as our genes flow through ancient time to their present guardians - you and me.

Now we can follow their journeys to the jagged coasts of the north Atlantic or to the soft coral sands of the south Pacific. These tiny pieces of DNA, each the separate ambassadors of the essence of the feminine and the masculine, have travelled to these distant lands just as surely as the longship and the outrigger carried their temporary custodians - the bodies of our ancestors.

These are the stories of the travels of our genes just as much as of the adventures of our ancestors. What naked force drove them into the unknown, across seas churned by maelstrom and cyclone to the lands beyond? For the Vikings I have already offered a conventional motivation: the overcrowding and shortage of land at home, the grim prospects for younger sons, and the greed of ambitious kings coupled with the means of escape. Their 203

ADAM’S CURSE

Y-chromosomes had no future in Norway, so they had to get away - and they did. They also carried their motivation with them. How proud the Shetlander who discovers that he carries the chromosome of the brave Viking who first hauled his boat onto the golden beaches of Yell or Uist! Within each cell he carries the evidence of his pagan and heroic past. He also carries the motivation

- his Y-chromosome. That tiny shred of DNA and its ambition to survive and multiply is what launched the ship of his ancestor from the deep fjords of Norway into the setting sun. His Y-chromosome drove him into the giant waves of the north Atlantic, sensing that its future lay beyond the horizon. It will not have particularly cared whether it propagated itself with the assistance of Norse women or the females that he knew could be fought for at the journey’s end. Sometimes it paid to take your own women along, sometimes it didn’t. To the Y-chromosome it is a matter of complete indifference. The important thing was to get away, to escape extinction by the ambition of other Y-chromosomes, particularly the king’s, and to survive. If this meant killing another man for his wife, then the Y-chromosome would be indifferent to the pain and despair. Survive and multiply. That’s all that mattered.

As I thought about this I began to wonder whether some Y-chromosomes are better at multiplying themselves than others. Were there Y-chromosomes that had multiplied far more than their contemporaries? If the world is being shaped so much by the ruthless ambition of the Y-chromosome, as research in Polynesia, in South America, in the Caribbean and among the Vikings was certainly suggesting, was the spell cast more effectively by some men than others? The answer turns out to be very surprising.

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