M168 - Skeletal and archaeological evidence suggest that anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago, and began moving out of Africa to colonize the rest of the world around 60,000 years ago.

M168 first appeared in the "Eurasian Adam" haplogroup; the common ancestor of everyone living today outside of Africa. This simple change in a single man's DNA sequence appeared between 31,000 and 79,000 years ago - most likely in today's Ethiopia or Sudan. The migrations of the original M168's descendents took them out of Africa where they became the first to survive, to the present day, away from humanity's birthplace. The upper Paleolithic era was one of massive population growth, which may have led these people to seen new hunting grounds. Archaeological evidence, such as improved tools and birth of art, also suggest important behavioral changes during this period. These developments may have had their roots in a genetic mutation that boosted cognitive function, and could have enabled M168 to better survive an arduous migration which was likely aided by a period of moist, relatively favorable climate. Whatever the reasons for their landmark journey, the numerous descendants of M168 help us to chart the journey out of Africa and the subsequent population of the entire planet.

The man who gave rise to the first genetic marker in your lineage probably lived in northeast Africa in the region of the Rift Valley, perhaps in present-day Ethiopia, Kenya, or Tanzania, some 31,000 to 79,000 years ago. Scientists put the most likely date for when he lived at around 50,000 years ago. His descendants became the only lineage to survive outside of Africa, making him the common ancestor of every non-African man living today.

But why would man have first ventured out of the familiar African hunting grounds and into unexplored lands? It is likely that a fluctuation in climate may have provided the impetus for your ancestors' exodus out of Africa.

The African ice age was characterized by drought rather than by cold. It was around 50,000 years ago that the ice sheets of northern Europe began to melt, introducing a period of warmer temperatures and moister climate in Africa. Parts of the inhospitable Sahara briefly became habitable. As the drought-ridden desert changed to a savanna, the animals hunted by your ancestors expanded their range and began moving through the newly emerging green corridor of grasslands. Your nomadic ancestors followed the good weather and the animals they hunted, although the exact route they followed remains to be determined.

In addition to a favorable change in climate, around this same time there was a great leap forward in modern humans' intellectual capacity. Many scientists believe that the emergence of language gave us a huge advantage over other early human species. Improved tools and weapons, the ability to plan ahead and cooperate with one another, and an increased capacity to exploit resources in ways we hadn't been able to earlier, all allowed modern humans to rapidly migrate to new territories, exploit new resources, and replace other hominids.

P143 - NO DATA PROVIDED

M89 - Moving Through the Middle East, the next male ancestor in your ancestral lineage is the man who gave rise to haplogroup M89; a marker found in 90 to 95 percent of all non-Africans. This man was born around 45,000 years ago in northern Africa or the Middle East.

The first people to leave Africa likely followed a coastal route that eventually ended in Australia. Your ancestors followed the expanding grasslands and plentiful game to the Middle East and beyond, and were part of the second great wave of migration out of Africa.

Beginning about 40,000 years ago, the climate shifted once again and became colder and more arid. Drought hit Africa and the grasslands reverted to desert, and for the next 20,000 years, the Saharan Gateway was effectively closed. With the desert impassable, your ancestors had two options: remain in the Middle East, or move on. Retreat back to the home continent was not an option.

While many of the descendants of M89 remained in the Middle East, others continued to follow the great herds of buffalo, antelope, woolly mammoths, and other game through what is now modern-day Iran to the vast steppes of Central Asia.

These semiarid grass-covered plains formed an ancient "superhighway" stretching from eastern France to Korea. Your ancestors, having migrated north out of Africa into the Middle East, then traveled both east and west along this Central Asian superhighway. A smaller group continued moving north from the Middle East to Anatolia and the Balkans, trading familiar grasslands for forests and high country.

L15 - NO DATA PROVIDED

M9 - Your next ancestor was responsible for spreading the Eurasian Clan far and wide. A man born around 40,000 years ago in Iran or southern Central Asia, gave rise to a genetic marker known as M9, which marked a new lineage diverging from the M89 Middle Eastern Clan. His descendants, of which you are one, spent the next 30,000 years populating much of the planet.

This large lineage, known as the Eurasian Clan, dispersed gradually over thousands of years. Seasoned hunters followed the herds ever eastward, along the vast super highway of Eurasian steppe. Eventually their path was blocked by the massive mountain ranges of south Central Asia-the Hindu Kush, the Tian Shan, and the Himalayas.

The three mountain ranges meet in a region known as the "Pamir Knot," located in present-day Tajikistan. Here the tribes of hunters split into two groups. Some moved north into Central Asia, others moved south into what is now Pakistan and the Indian subcontinent.

These different migration routes through the Pamir Knot region gave rise to separate lineages.

Most people native to the Northern Hemisphere trace their roots to the Eurasian Clan. Nearly all North Americans and East Asians are descended from the man described above, as are most Europeans and many Indians.

M45 - The journey through Central Asian began with the next marker of your genetic heritage,and arose around 35,000 years ago, in a man born in Central Asia. He was part of the M9 Eurasian Clan that had moved to the north of the mountainous Hindu Kush and onto the game-rich steppes of present-day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and southern Siberia.

Although big game was plentiful, the environment on the Eurasian steppes became increasing hostile as the glaciers of the Ice Age began to expand once again. The reduction in rainfall may have induced desertlike conditions on the southern steppes, forcing your ancestors to follow the herds of game north.

To exist in such harsh conditions, they learned to build portable animal-skin shelters and to create weaponry and hunting techniques that would prove successful against the much larger animals they encountered in the colder climates. They compensated for the lack of stone they traditionally used to make weapons by developing smaller points and blades-microliths-that could be mounted to bone or wood handles and used effectively. Their tool kit also included bone needles for sewing animal-skin clothing that would both keep them warm and allow them the range of movement needed to hunt the reindeer and mammoth that kept them fed.

Your ancestors' resourcefulness and ability to adapt was critical to survival during the last ice age in Siberia, a region where no other hominid species is known to have lived.

The M45 Central Asian Clan gave rise to many more; the man who was its source is the common ancestor of most Europeans and nearly all Native American men.

M207 - Leaving Central Asia after spending a considerable amount time there, your ancestors refined their survival skills in harsh new conditions and exploit new resources, a group from the Central Asian Clan began to head west towards the European subcontinent.

An individual in this clan carried the new M207 mutation on his Y chromosome. His descendants ultimately split into two distinct groups, with one continuing onto the European subcontinent, and the other group turning south and eventually making it as far as India.

Your lineage falls within the first group, M173, and gave rise to the first modern humans to move into Europe and eventually colonize the continent.

M173 - Colonizing Europe your ancestors became the first modern Europeans as they continued moving west, by a man born around 30,000 years ago in Central Asia. It was he who gave rise to your lineage defined by the genetic marker M173. His descendants were part of the first large wave of humans to reach Europe.

During this period, the Eurasian steppelands extended from present-day Germany, and possibly France, to Korea and China. The climate fostered a land rich in resources and opened a window into Europe.

Your ancestors' arrival in Europe heralded the end of the era of the Neanderthals, a hominid species that inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia from about 29,000 to 230,000 years ago. Better communication skills, weapons, and resourcefulness probably enabled your ancestors to outcompete Neanderthals for scarce resources.

This wave of migration into Western Europe marked the appearance and spread of what archaeologists call the Aurignacian culture. The culture is distinguished by significant innovations in methods of manufacturing tools, more standardization of tools, and a broader set of tool types, such as end-scrapers for preparing animal skins and tools for woodworking.

In addition to stone, the first modern humans to reach Europe used bone, ivory, antler, and shells as part of their tool kit. Bracelets and pendants made of shells, teeth, ivory, and carved bone appear at many sites. Jewelry, often an indication of status, suggests a more complex social organization was beginning to develop.

The large number of archaeological sites found in Europe from around 30,000 years ago indicates that there was an increase in population size.

Around 20,000 years ago, the climate window shut again, and expanding ice sheets forced your ancestors to move south to Spain, Italy, and the Balkans. As the ice retreated and temperatures became warmer, beginning about 12,000 years ago, many descendants of M173 moved north again to repopulate places that had become inhospitable during the Ice Age.

Not surprisingly, today the number of descendants of the man who gave rise to marker M173 remains very high in Western Europe. It is particularly concentrated in northern France and the British Isles where it was carried by ancestors who had weathered the Ice Age in Spain.

M343 - Direct escendants of Cro-Magnon around 30,000 years ago, you ancestral descendant of the clan made his way into Europe and gave rise to M343, the defining marker of your modern day haplogroup. You are a direct descendent of the people who dominated the human expansion into Europe, the Cro-Magnon.

The Cro-Magnon are responsible for the famous cave paintings found in southern France. These spectacular paintings provide archaeological evidence that there was a sudden blossoming of artistic skills as your ancestors moved into Europe. Prior to this, artistic endeavors were mostly comprised of jewelry made of shell, bone, and ivory; primitive musical instruments; and stone carvings.

The cave paintings of the Cro-Magnon depict animals like bison, deer, rhinoceroses, and horses, and natural events important to Paleolithic life such as spring molting, hunting, and pregnancy. The paintings are far more intricate, detailed, and colorful than anything seen prior to this period.

Your ancestors knew how to make woven clothing using the natural fibers of plants, and had relatively advanced tools of stone, bone, and ivory. Their jewelry, carvings, and intricate, colorful cave paintings bear witness to the Cro-Magnons' advanced culture during the last glacial age.

This is where your genetic trail, as we know it today, ends. However, be sure to revisit these pages. As additional data are collected and analyzed, more will be learned about your place in the history of the men and women who first populated the Earth. We will be updating these stories throughout the life of the project.

The Saharan Gateway - During this ancient era of shifting climates, the "Saharan Gateway" may have acted as ice bridges to allow humans out of Africa and then warmer temperatures closed the path by melting the ice.

For Africans, the Ice Age meant not cold, but drought. Yet some 50,000 years ago the long-term trend of expanding deserts was interrupted by a period of warmer temperatures and moist climate that made even parts of the Sahara hospitable. The Beneficial shift likely spurred human migrations to the Middle East by drawing people to a steppe-like Sahara and later forcing them to migrate when the climate again turned arid.

Which route early humans actually traveled on to reach the Middle East is still uncertain. They may have skirted the Red Sea coast to reach and corpses the Sinai, or even crossed the narrow Red Sea straight of Bab al Mandab to Arabia.

Whichever way the traveled out of Africa, the route back was blocked by later expansion of the Sahara sands. The desert was its driest between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago, when the Saharan Gateway slammed shut and isolated migrants outside of Africa, forcing them to move on.

In the Beginning - Anatomically modern humans were found in Africa nearly 200,000 years ago. Yet evidence of modern behavior and culture, such as trade, refined tool-making, and art, does not appear until the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic era some 50,000 years ago. This long discrepancy is addressed by a theory dubbed the "Great Leap Forward," which attempts to explain how modern behavior arose in a relatively sudden manner. The Great Leap Forward is predicated on language development-the only major skill unique to humans. The discovery of FOXP2, a singly gene critical to our neural capacity for language, raised the possibility that a genet shift allowed ancient humans to acquire language skills, in a short time. While other animals communicate, only humans construct patterns of words and syntax to transfer thoughts from one mind to another. This ability gives those who share it tremendous social advantages, evidenced by the appearance of modern thought and behavior amount humans and the decline of hominid species that did not share these characteristics. The proposed era of the "Great Leap Forward" also coincides with the first significant geographic expansions of human population and settlement, which may have been another result of rapidly modernizing human culture.

The Domesication of Animals - Hunters were primary human food providers for millions of years before a wid-ranging global transition to agriculture some 7,000 to 10,000 years ago.

Instead of hunting animals as they had since time immemorial, humans began to domesticate them. The process provided reliable access to food, but human-dependant herds also changed the nature of the societies in which they would dwell.

This process happend not in a single location or in a rliable pattern but variably at different locations around the globe.

Dogs may have been the first domesticated animals, as they were important to the hunting society which immediately proceded agriculture. The dog/human partnership likely began around 10,000 B.C. in the Near East.

Domestic goats and sheep appeared in the Near East, between the eastern Mediterranean and Afghansistan, around 8000 B.C.

The Domesication of Pets - The love that ancient Egyptians had for cats is well known. In addition to helping cities control vermin populations, they were kept as pets and revered in Egyptian religion and mythology, to which the feline goddess Bastet and cat cult attest. They were also mummified more than any other non-human animal.

But the dog — what the ancient Egyptians called "iwiw" after an onomatopoeia for its bark — also played a large role. They were also pets and some of them were also mummified. The cemetery at Abydos had a special section set aside just for them. During the Ptolemaic period (305 BC — 30 BC), the center of the cult Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the dead, was Cynopolis, which means "city of dogs" in Greek.

The World's Languages - Humans speak some 6,000 distinct languages around the world-but linguistic diversity is less than that number suggests. Most tongues are spoken by only a handful of people who live in a distinct and often isolated geographic area. In fact, half of the world's population speaks the fifteen most popular languages. Ninety percent speak one of the languages in the top 100. Languages take between 500 and 1000 years to evolve from their predecessors. But distinct regional languages, and the traditional cultures from which they spring, are disappearing at an alarming rate.

The 19th century rise of nationalism spelled near destruction for many tongues as Breton speakers adopted French, Celtic, Manx communities turned to English and many others followed suit. In other parts of the world the elimination or assimilation of once-distinct tribes has resulted in the loss of their unique languages. Linguists estimate that 15,000 languages were spoken 500 years ago and that half of those have since been lost. These tongues may be vanishing as quickly as one every two weeks, which would mean that half of the remaining languages would become existence over the next century.

Each time a language disappears; a precious link to ancient past vanishes forever. Linguistic and cultural diversity are often linked to important genetic patterns. The growing loss of cultural isolation threatens to erase these important signposts from the map of our human history.

Central Siberia - This hotspot boasts few indigenous languages compared with most. However, it holds six language families, two of which have only one remaining language, and almost all of the languages here are endangered. Russian-only government policies have extinguished a number of Siberian languages over the last few generations, and many living languages here have only a few elderly speakers.

Among them is Tofa, now spoken by fewer than 30 people, all quite elderly. Traditionally, the Tofa people herded reindeer, hunted, and gathered. Their language includes complex classifications that allowed reindeer herders to pack a density of meaning into a single word. For example, the word döngür means "male domesticated reindeer in its third year and first mating season, but not ready for mating." Now most of the Tofa people speak Russian, which has no equivalents for words like döngür.

Eastern Siberia - Like Central Siberia, the Eastern Siberia hotspot encompasses few languages compared to most others. However, it is home to ten language families, including at least three families that have only one language each. It is notable, therefore, for language diversity and extreme endangerment. Many Siberian languages have been lost in the last few generations to government policies that force speakers of minority languages to use the national language. Many living languages in the area have only a few elderly speakers.

Mednyj Aleut, also called Copper Island Aleut, is a puzzle for linguists attempting to classify languages. Most languages derive from one parent language. Mednyj Aleut has two parents. The language's first speakers were children with one Russian parent and one Aleut parent. The language they created and passed on resembles Aleut, but with Russian verb endings and Russian words mixed into the vocabulary.

Northern Australia - Aboriginal Australia speaks some of the world's most endangered languages. Many languages in the south and east have been lost already; more will soon follow. Aboriginal groups are small and scattered because of a history of conflict with white settlers. A number of groups did not survive this contact, while others barely survived and struggle to maintain their own languages and cultures.

In July 2007, the Enduring Voices team met with and recorded the last speakers of several languages. These included the only three surviving speakers of Magati Ke (or Marti Ke) in the Northern Territory's Wadeye community, and the last speaker of Amurdag (Amarag), which had been reported extinct 25 years ago. This single remaining speaker had not used the language in nearly 50 years and remembered the words with difficulty. In Western Australia, the team recorded a woman from Sunday Island who said she spoke a variety of the Bardi language. It turned out that she may be the last speaker of a language called Djawi.

Eastern Melanesia - This hotspot's many small islands may harbor the highest per capita density of languages in the world. Often just a few hundred people speak a language here. But many children learn their ancestral tongue along with a national language, and speakers maintain their languages as part of their cultural identities, reducing the level of linguistic endangerment.

For linguists, a language boundary exists if speakers cannot understand one another; if speakers understand each other despite major language differences, there is only one language with two dialects. Many small communities in Eastern Melanesia consider their languages distinct from those spoken in neighboring communities even when they can understand another community's language. The high regard for language as part of cultural identity here allows many languages to survive but poses problems for census takers and scholars attempting to count languages and dialects.

Western Melanesia - The island of New Guinea, split between the countries of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, may be the most linguistically diverse place on Earth. Here, people speak a huge number of languages, many from small language families. The classification of many of these languages and their relations to other world languages are not yet well understood.

Only about 160 people in the village of Mandi in Papua New Guinea speak Wiarumus. Today, Mandi's young adults might understand the language but cannot speak it fluently, and children don't understand Wiarumus at all. In June 2002, the people of Mandi met to design an alphabet and discuss revitalizing their language. The village is fewer than 8 miles (13 kilometers) from the province capital, so there is strong pressure for children to learn the national language, Tok Pisin. To revive Wiarumus, its speakers would need to shift social attitudes dramatically.

Taiwan-Philippines - Taiwan and the Philippines host a multitude of diverse languages. In Taiwan, many languages have perished, and many remaining aboriginal languages may disappear in the face of pressure to speak more prevalent languages. The popular Tagalog and Filipino languages threaten small indigenous languages in the Philippines.

The Yami people—some 3,000 inhabitants of the tiny Irala (Orchard Island) south of Taiwan—rely on flying fish they catch during the summers as a major source of food year-round. The Yami language includes names for about 450 species of fish. Their fish taxonomy distinguishes edible fish (ovod a among) from inedible fish (maharet a among). These are subdivided into fish forbidden for men or forbidden for women. Pregnant women may only eat four species of fish, and the elderly consume only other species. The Yami language transmits this rich culinary and cultural knowledge of fish.

Southeast Asia - This small region—home to highly endangered indigenous languages, many still unclassified—straddles political boundaries among five different countries. The dominant languages are Cantonese, Vietnamese, Lao, Thai, and Burmese, depending on the country.

Arem is a nearly extinct language of Vietnam and Laos. The Arem people were forced to abandon their forest homes about 50 years ago and to move to government relocation centers. Recent estimates place the number of Arem speakers at 40, with a total ethnic population of about 600. Indigenous knowledge systems have doubtless eroded in the decades since the Arem had to abandon their traditional ways of life.

Eastern India & Malaysia - Distribution of Eastern India's many large and small indigenous languages remains poorly understood. While census numbers exist for many areas, they vary in reliability and provide no information about the structure of languages or their use in society. Some people here use different languages regularly over the course of a single day, with unique languages used in the home, in markets, and in other venues.

Arunachal Pradesh in the far northeast of India is one of the least populated but most linguistically and culturally diverse parts of the country. The languages of the Nicobar and Andaman Islands remain poorly understood. One, Sentinelese, has never been recorded, and it is unclear even what type of language it is. With tiny populations of speakers, a single event such as the catastrophic 2004 tsunami could literally wipe these small languages from the face of the Earth.

Caucasus - A large number of languages from a few primary genetic units, or language families, persist in the Caucasus Mountains. Three of these—Kartvelian, Northwest Caucasian, and Daghestanian—have no relationship with languages outside the Caucasus. Despite Soviet-era attempts to force residents of the Caucasus to speak Russian, many Caucasian languages thrive today.

The Turkic language Balkar is spoken in the North Caucasus highlands of Russia's Kabardino-Balkariya republic. Like many other non-Russian speaking groups in the U.S.S.R., the Balkar people were deported to Kazakhstan and Siberia in 1944, losing up to half of their population. Since returning to their land in 1957, they have maintained their language and identity, with 97 percent of the 87,000-plus ethnic Balkars speaking the Balkar language. However, they suffer discrimination from both Russian and Kabardian speakers.

Eastern Africa - This hotspot encompasses many languages spoken by different ethnic groups. Documentation of these languages is limited: Despite recent efforts to record them, 80 percent of Africa's 2,000 languages have no written form. The major threat to linguistic diversity in Africa has been the Bantu language family, which has spread over much of the southern two-thirds of the continent.

As of 1980, there were fewer than 50 speakers of Kenya's Omotik language, and all were more than 40 years old. The Omotik people used to be hunter-gatherers but now live among the Maasai herders and have adopted the Maasai language and lifestyle. Speakers of languages with low prestige among the majority of a region's population encourage their children to learn languages that will allow access to better jobs when they grow up. Since Omotik children learn to speak Maasai rather than their native tongue, the Omotik language has little chance of survival.

Southern Africa - This sparsely populated area, including dry savannas, mountains, the Namib Desert, and the Kalahari Desert, abounds with diverse languages. Over the last 50 years, dramatic changes in the ways of life of groups throughout the region have endangered their knowledge systems and their languages.

One example: The !Kung people of Namibia and Botswana have switched from hunting and gathering to farming and herding cattle. With this change, !Kung speakers have lost traditional hunter-gatherer knowledge forever, as there is no !Kung writing system. The exclamation point in the name represents a particular kind of click. A number of languages in Africa, but only a few in other parts of the world, use clicks as part of their consonant system. !Kung employs four distinct click sounds.

Western Africa - More than 500 languages—5 percent or more of those spoken on the entire planet—are spoken in the country of Nigeria alone. Language endangerment is not as great here as in many other parts of the world.

Fewer than 100 people, and no one younger than 50 years old, speak Yangkam, one of the region's languages. Most of the Yangkam people now speak Hausa, one of the major national languages of Nigeria. They have maintained other elements of their cultural identity but do not consider their language an important part of the culture. Although no nearby groups use Hausa as a first language, Hausa gained a foothold with the Yangkam during the slave trade, which greatly disrupted Yangkam life.

Southern South America - Government policies that force tribes to leave traditional ways of life, settling nomadic groups on reservations and destroying natural ecosystems for economic gain, threaten this region's numerous indigenous languages. Speakers of small indigenous languages are shifting to Spanish or larger indigenous languages, such as Guaraní.

One small language is Aché, spoken in eastern Paraguay. This language is related to Guaraní, which, along with Spanish, is one of the two official languages of Paraguay. Aché, though, is a separate language spoken by a distinct group of people. Aché speakers lived as hunter-gatherers until the 1970s, when contact with outsiders led to epidemics that killed half their population. Shortly after that, the Paraguayan government forced the Aché people to settle on reservations. Today, Aché speakers continue to forage in the woods for food. Due to their close interaction with the natural world, they have a rich vocabulary of words about forest life. These words could be lost as the Aché people lose their connection to the forest.

Central South America - This hotspot—spanning the Andes Mountains and some of the Amazon Basin—may be the world's most endangered, with high language diversity, little documentation of remaining indigenous languages, and immediate threats to their continued use. Here, Spanish, Portuguese (in Brazil), and more dominant indigenous languages are replacing smaller ones.

The Kallawaya people have been herbalist healers since the time of the Inca (Inka) Empire. They use Spanish or the prevalent indigenous language Quechua in daily life, but maintain their own secret language, passed down from father to son or grandfather to grandson. The Kallawaya use this language to encode information about thousands of medicinal plants, though they can also express everyday thoughts with it. How this language has survived for more than 400 years after the fall of the Inca Empire, while being spoken by few—now fewer than 100—people, is a mystery.

Northern South America - Many of the indigenous languages of this hotspot are spoken in the rain forests of the interior, far from coastal population centers. Indigenous groups here are more likely to come in contact with each other than with speakers of world languages, such as Spanish, so much of the language shift occurring today is from smaller to larger indigenous languages.

Sáliva, spoken mostly in the east of Colombia and by a few people in Venezuela, is so isolated that the language was reported extinct in 1965. That assessment was premature: A 1993 tally found more than 1,500 Sáliva speakers. Nearly all are bilingual in Spanish, however, and Sáliva children learn Spanish instead of their ancestral tongue. As the current generation ages, the number of Sáliva speakers will plummet, illustrating how a language spoken by many can nevertheless be endangered.

Meso America - Mexico's Mesoamerica region encompassed a large number of early civilizations—including the Olmec, Teotihuacan, Maya, and Aztec—before the arrival of Europeans. The region is now home to many of Mexico's indigenous groups, which continue to speak ancestral languages despite cultural pressure to speak Spanish.

In Mesoamerica, speakers of different languages have been in contact for so long that their languages have acquired traits from one another, making them similar in many ways. Mesoamerican languages also share unique sentence structures that set them apart from related languages spoken nearby.

Oklahoma-Southwest North America - Oklahoma boasts the highest density of indigenous languages in the United States. This hotspot includes languages originally spoken in the region, as well as those of tribes from farther east that were forcibly relocated onto reservations here.

One language of this area, Yuchi, may be unrelated to any other. The U.S. government drove the Yuchi from Tennessee to Oklahoma in the early 1800s. Until the early 20th century, most Yuchi tribe members spoke the language fluently. After that, government boarding schools severely punished American Indian students heard speaking their own language. To avoid beatings and other punishments, Yuchi children abandoned their parent's language in favor of English. In 2005, only five elderly members of the Yuchi tribe were fluent in the language. These remaining speakers spoke Yuchi fluently before they went to school and have maintained the language despite strong pressure to abandon it.

Northwest Pacific Plateau North America - This is one of the most endangered language hotspots. No children and few to no young adults speak the indigenous languages in the American portion of the region. Languages farther north and west have more speakers, but near British Columbia's urban centers, many are abandoning their native languages for English.

Oregon's Siletz reservation, established in 1855, was home to the endangered language Siletz Dee-ni. The reservation held members of 27 different Indian bands speaking many languages. In order to communicate, people adopted Chinook Jargon, a pidgin or hybrid language. Between the use of Chinook Jargon and the increased presence of English, the number of speakers of indigenous languages dwindled.

The Burushaskan Language - Burushaski is a "language isolate," spoken in northwest Kashmir and unrelated to any other languages used nearby. Only about 40,000 people speak Burushaski, but that small group may be remnant of a vast ancient language family with roots as old as 10,000 years ago.

Some linguists have linked Burushaski with disparate languages around the world including Basque, the extinct Sumerian tongue, and even some North American languages.

If such relations are accurate, Burushaski and other languages could be an ancient echo of the Paleolithic world that has withstood the advent of far more common modern language families.

The ancient genetic markers of migrating early humans offer some tantalizing hints at how such language "pockets" might once have been linked. There is no conclusive data, but this intriguing field awaits continued study.

The Pamir Knot - The Pamir is a high mountainous plateau about the size of Pennsylvania (45,600 square miles or 118,000 square kilometers). It is known as the Pamir "Knot" because of its location at the junction of four great Asian mountain ranges: the Himalayas, the Karakoram, the Hindu Kush, and the Tian Shan.

Even today these towering mountains pose a nearly insurmountable barrier to human travel. When Upper Paleolithic peoples first reached the area from the westward steppes, during an ice age some 40,000 years ago, these staggering obstacles stared them in the face and directed the course of their future travels.

In the region of present-day Afghanistan. One group moved north of the Hindu Kush into Central Asia. There the Tian Shan mountains blocked their route to western China, and it appears likely that expanding deserts blocked a route of contact back to the Middle East. Because of these geographical "bollards" they would exist for thousands of years in relative isolation. The second group traveled south of the Hindu Kush into Pakistan and the Indian subcontinent, and became known as the Indian Clan.

The Eurasian & Iranian Steepes - The vast Eurasian and Iranian steppes were an unbroken grassland stretching from the Gulf of Aqaba to Mongolia. The steppes were rich with big game like antelope and bovids and in that respect were similar to Africa's savanna. The environment was tailor-made for Upper Paleolithic-era hunters, and eventually warriors, who soon began to expand along its length.

The steppes served as a migration "super-highway" for humans who simply followed their food source. Some moved to the west and may have reached the Balkans, but the unfamiliar mountains and forests on this route limited travel towards Europe. The vast majority of steppe-dwellers moved eastward, on more familiar ground, across Eurasia.

Though food sources were plentiful, the climate along this eastward route became colder and required survival adaptations. Far from the sunny climate of Africa, these people learned of necessity how to construct improved shelters and to create warmer clothing. The latter hinged on a tiny invention of enormous importance-the sewing needle.

Plant Domestication - After millions of years of foraging for food, human hunter-gatherer cultures around the world bake and amazing transition to agriculture some 9,000 to 12,000 years ago B.C.E. This event happened not in a single location but in disparate cultures around the world.

Wheat, barley, peas, and beans appeared in the Near East between the eastern Mediterranean and Afghanistan circa 10,000 B.C.E.

In the Far East, plant domestication was practiced in numerous areas prior to 7,000 B.C.E., while rice cultivation began in Southern China and Southeast Asia before 7,000 B.C.E. Root crops likely preceded both, though they leave a very scant archeological record to tell the tale.

In Mexico gourds, squash, avocados, peppers, pumpkins, beans, and corn were produced before 7,000 B.C.E. South America's Peruvian highlands boasted tomatoes, beans, and potatoes by 7,000 B.C.E.

The global transition from gathering to farming was likely one of the incremental behavior shifts. Nonetheless, the effort restructured much of human society. While hunter-gatherer villages did exist prior to plant domestication, the rise of agriculture is generally linked to more sedentary, growing populations and the eventual rise of modern, urban societies.

But why such sudden change after millions of years? No one can be sure. Some suggest that farming addressed shifts in the balance between food resources and populations. Growing populations, waning food sources (perhaps due to climate change), or a combination of the two may have forced human populations to see higher nourishment efficiency per acre than wild plants could provide. This would have been particularly true in fringe areas where natural resources were never as plentiful.

Social causes may have also driven plant domestication. If food surpluses were converted into valuable items through trade, there would have been strong incentive for some people to develop more effective systems of agriculture.

Other theories exist, but no one theory applies to the many different global situations in which agriculture evolved. Especially since this amazing transition has not set pattern.

Barents Ice Shelf - Circa 35,000 years ago much of Europe was covered by massive ice sheets. During this frigid time, humans and hominid species alike survived only in southern "refugias" of Spain, southern France, Italy, and the Balkans.

Colder temperatures posted survival challenges, as did rapid ice age climate fluctuations that could occur within the space of a single lifetime. Such shifting ecology may have strained or eliminated traditional food sources and necessitated the construction of better housing and the manufacture of warmer clothing.

These quick changes may have conferred advantages on some species, such as humans (Cro-magnon), who could adapt technology and behavior at the expense of others, such as Neanderthals, who could not do so as easily. It is possible that shrinking resource put numerous species in direct competition, with only humans emerging as the soul surviving species.

While they may have spelled the end for Europe's Neanderthals, ice ages had different effects on different parts of the world. During many periods Africa was plagued not by cold but by draught. These conditions expanded arid deserts, and may have enticed the first humans to leave that continent in search of better food sources.

Lower sea levels through the ice ages also exposed numerous "land bridges" which facilitated migration between areas that are now separated by ocean waters. This phenomenon was likely instrumental in the settlement of North America, Great Britain, and other land masses around the world.

Paleolithic Megafauna - Megafauna in Europe co-existed with primitive man during the Ice Age, there various species of large animals also known as megafauna. These large mammals existed all over the world in different continents. In the Americas, we could find the Giant Ground Sloth, the Giant Beaver and Sabertooth cats. In Australia, we could find Giant Kangaroos and Marsupial lions. In Africa, we could find the Giant Long Horned Buffalo as well as the Dinotherium (ancestor of the elephant). And in Europe, there existed the Irish elk. These massive mammals would have been a great sight. They would have added to the spectacular world that is the animal kingdom we have on Earth today but what exactly happened to these large mammals?

These animals were a very formidable presence in the ancient world, and as such they are prominently featured in cave paintings and carvings that survive from the period.

Powerful bodies, sharp teeth, and other natural weapons made many of them dangerous prey. Yet because of the large size they were very desirable quarries for hunter societies. These animals provided not only sustenance, but also other necessities such as furs for clothing and bone to make instruments. In some areas, such as Siberia, the carcasses and tusks of mammoths and other animals were used to construct housing.

Megafauna were of such central importance that they likely played an instrumental role in some of the migrations which led people to disperse around the globe. Plentiful herds likely first drew people eastward across the steppe to Central Asia and across the Beringia landmass from Siberia into North America.

Though life without megafauna was once unimaginable, many of these species have long since gone extinct; others, like elephants and rhinoceroses, survive. In Europe many species died out circa 17,000-12,000 B.C.E., while in Eurasia and North America mass extinction occurred circa 10,000 B.C.E.

Some scientists believe that increasingly sophisticated hunting equipment and techniques played a role in exterminating some of the world's distinctive megafauna. Others point to climatological changes during warming at the close of the Ice Age, which may have left the large animals unable to adapt.

Paleolithic Megafauna - Human occupation of Britain began some 30,000 years ago but fuctuated periodically with changing Ice Age climate. As little as 3,000 years after arrival people were driven southward, out of Britain, by encroaching ice. Recent research suggests that as glaciers retreated at the end of the last Ice Age, a period of rapid warming ensued and humans followed deer and other heard animals back to Britain.

The dated remains of butchered and consumed animals tell the chronological tale. Humans returned as early as 16,000 years ago, only slightly later than similar remains are found in mainland northern Europe. During the ice ages Britain would itself have been attached to mainland Europe as a peninsula. Lower sea levels would have created a wide connection between Denmark and Britain, which did not become an island until about 6,500 B.C.

Humans may have been briefly driven south again circa 12,000 years ago before returning for good. Art found at Creswell Crags in Derbyshire hints at the speed with which these numerous migrations might have occurred. One painting represents an ibex, an animal not found in Britain. The image suggests that the artists may have had memory of such animals from Belgium or other continental areas and reproduced them from memory after their journey to modern Britain.

Magdalenian Culture - The Magdalenian period (circa 18,000 to 10,000 B.C.) was a time of growing human populations and the most advanced culture of the Upper Paleolithic. Herds of reindeer, bison, and wild horses provided ample game for these semi-settled hunters and fishermen. Community groups likely moved among several established dwellings, including caves and tentlike structures, by following an established seasonal pattern.

Bone and antler tools, often engraved, became much more common relative to stone and flint implements. The first European spears and harpoon points appeared during this era, boosting hunting efficiency and safety.

Artistic expression was quite advanced in Magdalenian culture, as reflected in the dramatic images of the Lascaus and Altamira caves. The likely cultural symbolic, and religious meaning of such accomplishment are unknown, but they indicate a people with substantial time to devote to nonsustenance civilities. These images reflect the natural world of the time, yet it was a world in flux which held peril for Magdalenian peoples.

Warming climates (circa 10,000 years ago) may have tinned the herds and stressed Magdalenian society. The succeeding Azilian period is far more simple and bereft of complex art. Some scientists suspect the dwindling food resources curtailed the art activities that had been so distinctive of the Magdalenian age.

Lascaux Cave, France - France's Dordogne River Valley is a region of limestone cliffs and caves at the epicenter of the cave art world. Among hundreds of local sites, Lascaux is home to perhaps the world's most incredible array of Upper Paleolithic art-some 600 paintings and 1,500 engravings dating to between 28,000 B.C. to 15,000 B.C.

The cave was sealed approximately 15,000 years ago before teenagers accidently stumbled upon its newly cleared entrance in 1940.

Deep inside the cave's dark interior, colorful depictions of a vanished world adorn the limestone walls. Systems of scaffolding and lighting were needed to create these images, and fragments of simple stone oil lamps survive to the present. The cave was likely not a living area but a special place, perhaps of ritual importance and visited only on occasion.

The art is such uniform quality that it suggests the existence of designated, talented artists who applied mineral pigments with pieces of hair, fur, or chewed sticks. They worked with a palate of black, yellow, red, and white.

Most paintings depict animals like bison, deer, rhinoceroses, and horses. They also suggest natural events important to Paleolithic life such as spring molting, hunting, and pregnancy.

The cave's most famous "hall of the Bulls" is 66 feet (20 meters) wide and 16 feet (5 meters) high. its walls feature a frieze of four enormous bulls, over 15 feet (5 meters) long, as well as horses, deer, and an unknown animal with two straight horns dubbed the "Unicorn."

A large woolly rhino, bird-headed human, mortally wounded bison, and one-legged bird comprise another notable scene. Though its meaning is lost to the ages, numerous theories of hunting rites and shamanism attempt to interpret this ancient tableau.

During the mid-twentieth century, Lascaux's treasures proved too popular for their own good. Hordes of tourists altered the cave's temperature and humidity, threatening the ancient art with destructive fungus and mold. Because of these threats the cave was closed in 1963, but the government has build a faithful facsimile, Lascaux II, which awaits visitors eager for a glimpse of Paleolithic culture.

Altamira Caves, Spain - The "Sistine Chapel of Cave Art" was painted between 14,000 and 12,000 B.C. This Spanish cave takes its nickname from its most distinguishing feature-huge, polychrome bison painted on the ceiling of the cave's great hall. The images, painted in ochre, manganese, and charcoal, depict many standing bison but also several curled-up animals that occupy natural bulges in the ceiling. Scientists continue to debate the meaning of these figures and have variously described them as sleep. dying, or giving birth. While these interpretations may be correct, they could also have been simply painted to fit the contours of the ceiling surface. The total array of ceiling images may depict a bison hunt (human figures appear on its fringes) or perhaps a mating rut. The cave's famous ceiling is not its only point of distinction. Its walls host deer-heard engravings, finger tracings, rare positive painted handprints, and a series of human "masks." These last features were created by adding eyes and other detail to natural rock formations. Most of the can be seen only by people exiting, rather than entering, the cave.