Study: Paleolithic Women Dug Farmers

If you really want to impress women, join the Grange or the FFA. That is the finding of a remarkable study of the DNA of most British men that shows that they are direct descendants of farmers who left Iraq and Syria over 10,000 years ago. It turns out that hunter-gatherer women dug the fact that they could grow food and dumped those bronzed spear-throwing hunks for guys with farmer’s tans.

The study of 2000 men by Leicester University found 80 per cent of European men share the same Y chromosone mutation linking them to farmers coming over from the Near East. What is fascinating is the women were linked to hunter-gatherer groups.

Professor Mark Jobling put it in less than romantic terms: “When the expansion happened these men had a reproductive advantage because they were able to grow more food so they were more attractive to women and had more offspring.” What I do not understand is why this never worked for me in college. My standard pick-up line was “Hey, baby, I have three acres of prime farmland and a hankering for offspring.” This was little better than my earlier line: “how about coming up to my place to check out my hectares?”

Once again, I will have to turn to one of my favorite country music tunes to explain this scientific finding:

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