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I had almost forgotten about the Genographics test I did a few months back. So I logged into the website to check and sure enough, my test result is out.

The result shows that I belonged to Haplogroup-O, carrying the M175 marker. What does that mean? I’ll let some technical mumbo-jumbo explain it for you.

Your Y-chromosome results identify you as a member of haplogroup O.

The genetic markers that define your ancestral history reach back roughly 60,000 years to the first common marker of all non-African men, M168, and follow your lineage to present day, ending with M175, the defining marker of haplogroup O.

If you look at the map highlighting your ancestors’ route, you will see that members of haplogroup O carry the following Y-chromosome markers:

M168 > M89 > M9 > M175

Today, more than half of all Chinese males carry the genetic marker M175, which is also widespread throughout East Asia and found in lower frequencies in Tahiti and Indonesia.

M175: The East Asian Clan
Fast Facts
Time of Emergence: 35,000 years ago
Place of Origin: Central or East Asia
Climate: Ice Age
Estimated Number of Homo sapiens: Approximately 100,000
Tools and Skills: Upper Paleolithic

Your genetic trail ends with an ancestor carrying marker M175 who was born around 35,000 years ago in Central or East Asia. This ancestor was part of the M9 Eurasian clan that, encountering impassable mountain ranges, migrated to the north and east.

These early Siberian hunters continued to travel east along the great steppes, gradually crossing southern Siberia. Some of them, perhaps taking advantage of the Dzhungarian Gap used thousands of years later by Genghis Khan to invade Central Asia, made it into present-day China.

East Asia had been home to Homo erectus for nearly a million years, but traces of occupation disappear from the archaeological record around 100,000 years ago. The earlier hominids may have abandoned the region or died off due to a steadily deteriorating climate.

By the time your ancestors arrived in China and East Asia, the Ice Age was once again advancing toward glacial maximum. Encroaching ice sheets and Central Asia’s enormous mountain ranges effectively corralled them in East Asia. There they evolved in isolation over the millennia.

Today, some 80 to 90 percent of all people living east of Central Asia’s great mountain ranges are members of haplogroup O, the East Asian Clan. The marker M175 is nearly non-existent in western Asia and Europe.

There were actually two waves of migration into this region. While your ancestors populated the region from the north, another group approached from the south. Descendants of the Coastal Clan—people who left Africa perhaps 60,000 years ago and headed along the coastline toward Australia—may have reached East Asia by 50,000 years ago.

The Coastal lineage is found at a frequency of 50 percent in Mongolia, and is common throughout northeast Asia.

The present composition of East Asia still shows evidence of this ancient north-south divide, showing a clear distinction in genetic heritage between northern and southern Chinese.

Well, well, looks like I’m of Chinese descent. No big surprise there. The test confirms that my paternal lineage is of northern Chinese origins. I will need to run a separate test if I want to trace my maternal lineage. But I don’t think I’ll bother.

We are all related to each other it seems. Blood relatives in a sense. It still amazes me how everybody alive on Earth now, all of us, more than 6 billion of us, are descendants of a single individual living some 70,000 years ago. The human race is basically one humongous family. How cool is that? So all this talk of ‘racial identity’ and the idea of ‘my race is better yours’ are basically poppycocks and utter bullshit.