Words: 66
Average Length: 5.73
I’m big into Connections. Not the New York Times game, which often irks me. The real thing – the connections between all 8.3 billion of us, all cousins of one degree or another That’s today’s theme.
I’m particularly taken by 43 Across, a bland answer with enormous significance: As the clue says, nearly everyone living outside Africa today can trace a large portion of their DNA to a group of 1000-2500 breeding-age individuals who left Africa only 50,000 years ago.
And if you go back another 100,000 years or so, then all of us – regardless of where we live – can trace our lineage back to a single woman, “Mitochondrial Eve”, who lived in East Africa (33 Across, to be exact) around 6,000 generations ago.*
In other words, we’re all related (17 Down), and we’re all in this together (20 Across)!
OK, lesson’s over. Time to solve, cousins!
*Mitochondrial Eve wasn’t the only woman alive at the time, but she was the only one whose progeny survive today. (The male most recent common ancestor, “Y-Chromosome Adam,” likely lived more than 200,000 years ago – he and Mt-Eve weren’t a couple.)
2 replies on “Out of Africa”
I love your application of popular music (17D) and metaphysical poetry (20A) to anthropological theory! Terrific idea and execution, and a nice smooth fill. I especially liked the clue for 51A. (And I astonished myself, yet again, at how bad I am at anagrams: I needed crosses on 32A to come up with the Tuscan city 🙄) I enjoyed seeing 47D; I hadn’t encountered that proverb until I bought Todd Rundgren’s 1989 album, Nearly Human, which had a hit single referencing it.
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Glad you liked it! I had no idea that proverb showed up in a Todd Rundgren song. I’d always thought it was from Richard III, but when I researched the clue it turns out it goes back a century or so further.
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