European men are very much in the family way

Your neighbour might also be your next-of-kin, just a few generations removed. Researchers have found that more than 95 per cent of all European males can trace their ancestry back to one of just 10 individuals.

A genetic study of 1,007 men across Europe and the Middle East published this morning in Science journal found that if we all moved backwards along our individual family trees, we would end up with no more than 10 founding males.

The study was carried out by Dr Ornella Semino, of the University of Pavia, and colleagues from the US, Sweden, Ukraine, Italy, Greece, Russia, Croatia and Poland. Their work was based on the analysis of genetic markers on the Y or male-only chromosome. The Y chromosome does not swap genetic material with the X chromosome during sperm and egg formation so it provides a guys-only view of human ancestry.

The authors calculate that these 10 original males probably arrived in two waves. The first was during the Palaeolithic period, from two million to 13,000 years ago, and the second was during the Neolithic period, just 9,000 to 5,000 years ago.

The team used a collection of 22 genetic markers to find out who was related to whom. All but a very few Europeans ended up in one of the 10 original families.

"Two lineages . . . appear to have been present in Europe since Palaeolithic times. The remaining lineages entered Europe most likely later during independent migrations from the Middle East and the Urals," the authors suggest.

The researchers don't tell us where these 10 ancestors lived or what they were like, but their calculations do tell us something about when they arrived and where they went once they got here.

The family known as M170 got here about 22,000 years ago, they say. The newcomers liked the countryside around central eastern Europe and stuck there, except for a few who migrated to the Basque region and Sardinia.