My Ancestral Journey: What I Know Now
One of the goals of the five-year Genographic Project is to build a large enough database of anthropological genetic data to answer some of these questions. To achieve this, project team members are traveling to all corners of the world to collect more than 100,000 DNA samples from indigenous populations. In addition, we encourage you to contribute my anonymous results to the project database, helping our geneticists reveal more of the answers to our ancient past.
| Marker | Time of Emergence | Where from ? | Climate | Estimated Number of Homo sapiens | Tools and Skills: |
| M168 | Roughly 50,000 years ago | Africa | Temporary retreat of Ice Age; Africa moves from drought to warmer temperatures and moister conditions | Approximately 10,000 | Stone tools; earliest evidence of art and advanced conceptual skills |
| M89 | 45,000 years ago | Moving Through the Middle East | Semiarid grass plains | Tens of thousands | Stone, ivory, wood tools |
| M9 | 40,000 years ago | Iran or southern Central Asia | The Eurasian Clan Spreads Wide and Far | Tens of thousands | Upper Paleolithic |
| M45 | 35,000 years ago | Central Asia | Glaciers expanding over much of Europe | Approximately 100,000 | Upper Paleolithic |
| M207 | 30,000 years ago | Central Asia | Glaciers expanding over much of Europe and western Eurasia | Approximately 100,000 | Upper Paleolithic |
| M173 | Around 30,000 years ago | Central Asia | Ice Age | Approximately 100,000 | Upper Paleolithic |
| M343 | Around 30,000 years ago | Western Europe | Ice sheets continuing to creep down Northern Europe | Upper Paleolithic |