Dear Friends,
     At this time many of us are trying to gather
information about our ancestors going back to
the seventh generation. So, I got inspired to
carry the concept to its ultimate conclusion:
     THE BEGINNING!

     Seven generations back puts us around 1800. What
happened then? Our ancestors were in Germany,
Ireland, America and Japan. We know at least their
last names, for the most part. And they kept the same
traditions of wife taking on the husband's last name,
and other traditions, for the most part. For example,
they ate oatmeal, potatoes, rice...
     Fourteen generations gets us back to the original
mother countries: England, Germany, Japan, Wales,
France, Ireland. We're already in the Middle Ages.
The further you go back, to a certain point, the
more ancestors you have. But some intermarrying
also occurs. So, somewhere back there, you would
be surprised to find your wife/husband's ancestors
were the same as yours!
     Now, where do things start to converge? About
two thousand years ago, you find that many of the
present "Englishmen" were in Germany or
Scandinavia. Ireland was still Ireland, but they were
the Celts. The Celts were part of a vast group that
was there much earlier, going back at least 6,000
years, and spread over most of Europe. Now just
a few vestiges remain, like the Basque, etc. Also,
about two thousand years ago, a big persecution
happened in Korea, and the people from Paekche
had to escape with their lives on boats and head
for southern Japan. That's why some of Fujiko-san's
ancestors are from Korea about 2,000 years ago.
There is an ancient legend in Japan about "Kudara",
the mysterious lost paradise beyond the sea,
from which they originally came. Also, the Korean
and Japanese languages are linguistically very
close -- common grammar, expression, and many
vocabulary words. Historically, Japanese vigorously
deny any roots in Korea.
     Two thousand years ago, at the time of Jesus,
the basic makeup of the tribes and nations
around the world was established, before the
reorganization of everything around the Christian
providence. There were the Slavic tribes in
Eastern Europe, the Germanic tribes in Western
Europe, the Celts and Angles in Ireland and
Britain, the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese
(including the native Ainu tribe) in the Far East,
the American Indians in the New World, the
African tribes in their present positions (some
of them were already kingdoms and empires).
     Five thousand years ago (about 200
generations ago) those tribes or ethnic groups
were many of them first formed. Many of the
folk legends go back to around then.
     Six thousand years ago there were big
expansions, such as the Bantu expansion
throughout Africa, replacing the older
population which was there before, and now
is found only in isolated pockets, like the
Kalahari tribesmen, which is a much earlier
race, dating back at least 30,000 years ago.
This was done by something like the
"ethnic cleansing" recently practiced in
Yugoslavia; however, back then there was
nobody to stop them.
     In the Pacific Ocean was the Polynesian
expansion. They rapidly settled all the islands
of the Pacific, including parts of Japan and
Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, New Zealand,
Indonesia, Hawaii, even all the way to South
America. In fact, the languages are closely
related.
     About 7 to 9 thousand years ago the
Indo-European race spread out from
around Punjab or Afghanistan, from the
individual or family called "Japheth" in
the Bible. Some went to the south into
India, driving out the older Dravidians into
Sri Lanka, Cambodia, etc. Others went
to the north, becoming the origin of the
Slavic, Germanic, Latin, Etruscan, Celtic,
Scandinavian and other European tribes.
     Some of the European groups extant
today do not even date back to the
Indo-European expansion. Examples
are the Hungarians and Lapplanders.
They are part of a much older language
and ethnic group which dates back to
a time when the center of civilization
was in Siberia about 30,000 years ago.
>From that Siberian origin (of which there
are still legends in Siberia and elsewhere),
came the Chinese, Turkic, American
Indian, Lapps, Bashkirs, and others.
     To find the original origin of all the
peoples of the world today, you can go
back 100,000 years (four thousand
generations), when there was a "genetic
bottleneck", when all human beings
in the world died out except two groups:
the Cro-Magnons (our ancestors) and
the Neanderthals (who went extinct
27,000 years ago). Their DNA can be
examined and shows that they did not
intermarry at all. We could say the
Neanderthals were like the "abominable
snowman" of folklore for us. Children
are still scared of giants and monsters.
     The cultural artifacts, linguistic
groups, and blood types all point back
to a common origin one hundred thousand
years back. In fact, there were probably
not more than one to four families that
survived, because the differences of
DNA are so minor between all humans.
     So was that family the original "Adam
and Eve"? No. It was more like a "Noah"
story, pushed back in reality to an
event that took place 100,000 years
ago. However, there are two other "Noahs"
in human history. The second was the
ancestor of the Indo-European tribes,
the Semites, and the races of Ham
(Arabs, Hittites, Palestinians...). Of
course, neighbors mixed too. The third
"Noah" was the "real" one. This is the
person who made the ark, the father of
faith before Abraham. This ark actually
exists, and is, like it says in the Bible,
about 4,400 years old, and was found
on the high glaciers of Mt. Ararat. It is
really a strange thing, made of wood
that no longer exists in the region, and
of enormous dimensions like the Bible
says. So the Bible story is true but
the event of the nearly total extinction
of humanity was further back.
     The common origin of modern
human beings and the Neanderthals,
our brutish brothers (who were also
humans) was between 590,000 and
660,000 years ago. After that, the two
groups never intermingled, but they
did trade with and probably fought
with each other.
     Going even further back, we find
the real "cavemen", beasts with
human form. Let us say they were
humans, who had become perverted
into an existence worse than animals
-- they were intelligent, but used their
intelligence for violence, destruction,
rampage, pillage, rape, and nothing
constructive except subsistence and
tools of conflict. In such a race of
humans, you can be sure natural
selection favored the most brutish,
so they became worse and worse.
They are all extinct now.
     The original "Adam and Eve" were
about 2.5 million years ago. They had
the intelligence and beauty and good
will necessary to be the founders of
the true human race, but the problem
happened because, before their
maturity, they indulged in ill-advised
premarital sex (namely, before they
were mature, and without the
permission of their conscience --
they violated their conscience and
just went ahead). That's what
happened, and you can see the awful
result.
     It has taken 2.5 million years to
untangle their mistake, so now the
time has come when, though at this
very moment the most brutish people
that ever lived still roam the earth,
the side of goodness can win out, and
we can finally realize the world of
peace and true love, the original ideal
of all humankind.

* WSS, 1999.6.24. Moscow