Carles Lalueza-Fox: "We are descendants of the powerful men who practiced inequality"

Human beings have a tendency to imagine that their clan's past is heroic and glorious.

The cold genetic analysis of the bones of our ancestors, however, is uncovering a much more uncomfortable story, as geneticist Carles Lalueza-Fox details in a new book.

“We are much more likely to descend from kings than from peasants,” he writes in

(Critical editorial).

The researcher, director of the Barcelona Natural Sciences Museum, is an international benchmark in the study of ancient DNA.

Throughout almost 200 pages, this 57-year-old from Barcelona offers arguments around this shocking idea: modern people are descendants of the most abusive men who walked the Earth.

It's hard to claim this past, but fanatic nationalists probably don't know history and racists don't know genetics.

Question.

He says that "we are much more likely to be descended from kings than from peasants."

This goes against intuitive.

Reply.

It's actually speculative, but it makes all the sense in the world.

For example, in a necropolis from 5,700 years ago in England, Hazleton North, it has been seen that about thirty individuals analyzed descended from a patriarch who had children with four women.

And from historical data we know that, in the past, nobles, kings and emperors, in some cases, had hundreds of children, sometimes with dozens or hundreds of wives.

Instead, there were groups of contemporary men who did not have children.

It is probable that powerful men have genetically contributed more to current humanity, and that, therefore, we are descendants of those who practiced inequality.

Q.

People don't often think they are descendants of the most sinister of men.

A.

In North America, now that there are so many recreational genetics companies, many people in the African-American community have been tested and have discovered that, on average, 24% of their genome is European.

Most of these populations arose from European men who had children with Native American or African women.

It's a problematic heritage for some members of the African-American community.

On the internet you come across people who say that they feel ashamed of this quarter of the European genome, because they understand that it comes from an episode of social domination related to slavery.

Q.

And in Europe?

R.

In our case, these episodes are more distant and we don't tend to think of our heritage in these terms.

In the Iberian peninsula, 4,000 years ago, the local men basically disappeared.

Men with ancestry from the steppes [the Yamnaya, of present-day Russia] arrived and had children with local women.

In the Iberian Peninsula, 4,000 years ago, the local men basically disappeared

Q.

Almost all Spaniards, then, are descendants of the protagonists of that "Yamnaya invasion", as you call it in the book: powerful men who had many children with local women, perhaps eliminating the men who were already there.

R.

In a certain sense, yes, but then many more things happened.

This is a layer to which others were added: the Punics, the Iron Age, the Romans, the Visigoths, the Islamics.

There would be from stories of suffering to —why not?— love stories.

There is constant remixing of genomes, but yes, we are descendants of those who practiced this type of dominance.

Q.

Claiming to belong to an ancestral people, as many nationalisms do, does not seem to make much sense.

If you dig into the DNA, before that town there was another and before that there was another.

And they are all mixed up.

A.

Very clearly.

One of the conclusions of paleogenetic studies is that there is no population that has a single ancestral component in its genome.

Each population has all these layers of ancestry that have been superimposed.

In the case of the Iberian Peninsula, the complexity is such that we would have to add the North Africans of the Punic period, the North Africans of the Islamic period, the Visigoths, the Swabians... I find it difficult to build a story of a uniform group and different from the others.

Q.

You mention in the book Hernán Cortés [the conquistador of Mexico], who had 11 children, three of them with three different native women.

You emphasize that there was "a brutal sexual asymmetry" in the formation of the population of Latin America.

That brutal sexual asymmetry, what effects does it have today?

A.

In a town in Venezuela, Curiepe, they studied the Y chromosome —which is transmitted from father to son— and found that 80% were of European origin and the rest were Amerindian.

Her mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from mothers to daughters and sons, was 100% of African origin.

What does this mean?

That the populations were formed by male and European dominance over local and African women.

At the same time, in the case of the Native Americans, there was a group of men who stopped having children, because they could not reproduce, as also happened in the Iberian Peninsula.

Every time there is a man who has dozens of children, there are several who cannot have any.

Every time there is a man who has dozens of children, there are several who cannot have any.

Q.

You cite an extreme case, that of the founder of the American city of Salt Lake City, the Mormon Brigham Young, who lived in the 19th century and had 56 children by his 55 wives.

It is estimated that today he has 30,000 descendants.

A.

There is an association of descendants, it is not a theoretical calculation.

They are real data.

If this man married 55 women, there will be 54 men who did not have a partner.

Q.

Another extreme case that you mention in your book is that of Iceland, which was populated by Viking men and women from the British Isles, very possibly enslaved or taken against their will.

R.

Women, in these periods, were extraordinarily mobile, because they took them: to Iceland, to Sweden, to Denmark.

Carles Lalueza-Fox, in the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona.Gianluca Battista

Q.

Once again, DNA uncovers stories of countries that are not at all glorious.

It is one thing to sing of the Viking origins of Iceland and another is to verify, with genetic analysis, that they were a gang of despicable beings who were kidnapping women along the European coasts.

R.

We will never know personal stories.

I still think that maybe there is a whole spectrum, from kidnapping and rape to real couples.

But the stereotype of Iceland and the Viking expansion is that of male explorers, when, in reality, half the population were women, often taken against their will.

Genetic analyzes allow us to know these anonymous stories of exploitation and suffering, which we could not know before.

We are in a unique disposition to discover the anonymous story that goes beyond the adventurous and masculine stereotype.

Q.

You also talk about a Spanish example, the culture of El Argar, which in the Bronze Age had a patrilocal system: men stayed in their family group and women changed groups.

A.

That is typical of the Bronze Age.

It is seen in many deposits in England, Spain, Switzerland, Germany.

This system was established in the Bronze Age, very clearly.

Q.

In some cases, women even moved hundreds of kilometers from their families.

They might not see them again in their lives.

A.

Yes, we also have in Castillejo del Bonete [a Ciudad Real site from 3,800 years ago] a couple in which the man has steppe ancestry and the woman does not.

The woman also had a maritime diet, as shown by isotope analysis.

And they are in Ciudad Real.

The nearest coast is 300 kilometers away.

There was a great mobility of women in that period.

Of the women, in these deposits, it is almost never found their fathers, their mothers or their brothers.

Only children are found.

Women, in this period, lose all their family support.

There is no doubt that they were in a much weaker social situation than the men, who remained in their family group.

Tomb of a local woman and a man with steppe ancestry, who died 3,800 years ago, in Castillejo del Bonete (Ciudad Real).L.

BENÍTEZ DE LUGO AND JL FUENTES / OPPIDA

Q.

DNA uncovers a story that can be presumed terrifying, of women torn from their families.

A.

Yes, but we don't know that.

Perhaps the dominant social trend was for neighboring groups to exchange women.

Frequently, in these groups we do not find daughters either.

It is possible that these groups not only recruited women from abroad, but also

their own , let's put it that way.

I'm not sure to what extent it's a scary story or it was an accepted social device at the time.

Q.

In a grave at the Hospital Real de San José de los Naturales, in Mexico City, three 16th-century skeletons appeared, with typical deformations of doing heavy work, with gunshot wounds, with fractures.

Only with the skeleton it is impossible to imagine what those people were like.

Their DNA has shown that they were 100% sub-Saharan.

R.

It is a result that we will see more and more in the coming years, because there are still very few studies.

They are completely anonymous stories.

In the records of the slave ships it does not appear who they are.

We will never know their names, but now we are in a position to know their vital history.

It is very different to think that a skeleton belonged to a European colonizer or an African slave.

The vision of the site changes completely.

Q.

You affirm that women have contributed to a much greater extent to the genetic diversity of humanity than men.

Do you mean that there are fewer men who have reproduced?

A.

Correct.

If throughout the millennia, there have been systematically powerful men who have had hundreds or thousands of children, in some cases with hundreds of different women, this implies that women have contributed the most to diversity.

Q.

He cites the example of Pharaoh Ramses II, who had 162 children.

R.

Yes, in addition, powerful people had resources so that their children had a better chance of surviving.

Throughout the millennia, systematically, there have been powerful men who have had hundreds or thousands of children

Q.

Now the trend is reversing.

The middle classes, at least, have very few children, and the poorest have the most children.

R.

Totally, it is a paradoxical thing.

The higher educational level and income you have, the fewer children you have, but this is a phenomenon of the last few generations.

Throughout human history, a powerful man has had more offspring.

Q.

You also state that "we are descended from almost everyone who lived on the world a few thousand years ago."

A.

It is also a counterintuitive idea.

It can be shown statistically that, by probability, we must have received genomic fragments from almost anyone who was circulating a few thousand years ago.

Q.

Explain that if we go back 14 generations, which is 400 years, we have 16,000 ancestors.

If we go back just six more generations, or 20 generations, our family tree would be one million people.

R.

And if you go back a little more, it shoots up to billions, but that cannot be.

The explanation is that we are all so interconnected that we share a lot of ancestors.

Q.

Iceland was born with Viking men and women, perhaps, taken against their will.

However, as you highlight in the book, today it is one of the countries with the greatest equality.

R.

The message has to be optimistic.

Although we are the descendants of inequality, we have the ability to analyze this and try to correct it.

The past is in our genes, but the future is in our hands more than ever.

You can follow