The Country That Refused to Die: The Story of the People of Poland

By Richard Kwiatkowski

This is not a story about folk dancing, pierogies, and sausage making. It is a story of triumph and despair, struggle and joy, resolve and persistence.

The Country That Refused to Die is a nonfiction narrative of the people of Poland written in such fashion as to expose and dispel the millennium of disinformation, slander, and absence of accomplishments of Poland and its people. Its pages cover the creation, formation, the many contributions, and the constant struggle of the people of Poland to defend its way of life and survive against aggressive neighbors that would eliminate them and their culture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524509156

Richard Kwiatkowski

Richard Kwiatkowski is a retired engineer. He is a graduate of Morton College with degrees in both science and the arts. He also attended Baylor University and the Illinois Institute of Technology. A US Army veteran, he served in the Field Command, Defense Atomic Support Agency, where he performed classified duties. Richard was an engineering manager, a licensed professional engineer, and is very analytical and detail oriented. He is a fifth-generation American citizen. Richard also has an insatiable thirst for history that began in his early years and has continued throughout his life. He resides in Illinois with his wife, Helen.

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Prologue

W hen I was a youth, I was often annoyed and silently insulted by my friends telling me Polish jokes. You know; How many ‘Polacks’ does it take to screw in a light bulb? There were others as well, many of them. Some were cruel, I heard them all. These jokes were meant as fun, but in reality they were insulting, hurtful, and re-enforced a widespread myth that people of Polish descent are stupid, ignorant, and filthy. I wondered where they got this idea.

Later in life, an attorney looking for some work told me that I would never make it far with a funny sounding name and suggested I legally change it to something more American. Finally, I spoke. I mean, this is my Dad’s name. I responded, What would you recommend? Hiawatha? Geronimo? Sitting Bull? He quickly changed the subject without further comment. Again, I wondered why anyone would judge someone based on their name rather than intellect or talent. Where did this negative pall come from?

Still later, as I was researching the 1910 Chicago census looking for my grandfather’s and grandmother’s names, I noticed a curious thing. The Polish immigrants on the census were reporting their country of birth as Poland. However, in 1910 Poland didn’t exist and hadn’t for over 115 years. Then, that land was officially Germany (Prussia), Austria, or Russia and all maps and books of that time so said. I sensed a spirit of defiance and pledged to look into the history of Poland. That was the starting line of this story.

However, this was a very difficult task; Western world histories rarely mention Poland and, on those scarce occasions, give conflicting or odious accounts. People of positive historic note during the partitioned era, were identified as being born in Germany, Austria or Russia sometimes with the notation now Poland. This seems universal and endemic with most chroniclers and historians, as if Poland had an asterisk attached.

I had to dig very deep to find the story of Poland and it is much different than general public opinion. Most research material reflected a neglect or distortion of these historic works. Everywhere I turned, Poland’s history was minimized, misrepresented, omitted, or ignored. Worse, Polish accomplishments were attributed to other countries or nationalities. That can only be from distortion or ignorance. Even my word processor continues to ding the word Polish for polish (something to shine my shoes), apparently not realizing the English word for the people of Poland isn’t Polack (an offensive term which isn’t dinged at all).

I also found that during that 123 year period of occupation, Poland did indeed exist as a legal sovereign nation recognized by Europe. The spirit I had sensed was not one of defiance but a refusal to give up their country or heritage.

Why? What had Poland ever done to generate such pride in its people for them to hang on to its identity so fiercely? Where were the contributions of Poland in history?? Conversely, why did Poland deserve such disrespect from fellow Europeans or anyone else for that matter? What had they done that was wrong? Why is Poland hidden from the history books?

During my research, I became very impressed and moved by my ancestors. I found out what they contributed, why it was suppressed, and why they refused to give up their identity. I wish now to share what I found; the story of Poland. The real story, not the stories made up by the Prussians, Nazis, Russians, Communists or Hapsburgs that persist even to this day.

This is not a story about folk dancing, perogies, and sausage making. It is a story of triumph and despair, struggle and joy, resolve and persistence. It is a story of courage, of a people who passed the baton from one generation to the next. Above any and all nations, past and present, the Polish people have succeeded against the most terrible odds without outside help so needed, but denied. This is a story of a people with a huge heart, a country with a soul, too far ahead of its time, too dangerous to exist at the center of a continent surrounded by intolerance, prejudice, power, and greed. A story of a country and its heritage marked for destruction, not for abusing its people, not for invading their neighbors, not for debauchery or malfeasance, but only for being different, progressive, and establishing basic human rights for all its citizens regardless of ethnicity or religion.

This story is much suppressed or ignored by the West, perhaps from shame, maybe jealousy, possibly guilt, hidden from the light of day. American world history books rarely reference Poland even in passing and glamorize those cultures that were invaders, conquerors, and empire builders. So where are all those great empires today? Where are all those minor kingdoms that once peppered Europe? They’re all gone. Poland still lives and the world should be thankful for that, especially Europe.

Yet, how can the history of Europe completely ignore one of the oldest countries in Europe which for centuries was among the largest and most powerful? The only republic in Europe, save tiny San Marino, and the original country of freedom and religious tolerance is forgotten Poland. Poland was never a minor player in European history, not even in the modern era. How can American history hide the contributions of the Poles who helped America’s own quest for independence and freedom, focusing only on those Americans and foreigners of Anglo or Saxon heritage?

Today the Polish people still suffer from ridicule right here in the country of equality and freedom. Many with Polish ancestry change their names to sound more American, denying their heritage and ancestry just for the opportunity to advance in business and society. The Nazi and Teutonic slander of the past is somehow accepted as fact. Sadly, Poland is represented as an embarrassment to Europe, while the Nazi Holocaust, the Soviet communist pogroms, the century of religious wars, and the Spanish inquisition are just something that happened, even though all of Europe now tries, or pretends, to be what Poland always was.

Pictures and movies of Soviet Ukrainian farmers working their fields with horse-drawn plows and harvesting wheat with scythes in the 1930’s are incorrectly attributed to Poland. Hollywood portrays the Polish as an ignorant and simple minded people. Travel articles show pictures of chubby old toothless women in sweaters and headscarves selling flowers. TV shows illustrate people of Polish descent as hard working but course laborers limited in skill, devoid of intellect. It seems that the entertainment industry wish to portray Poland as to what the audience wants to believe rather than the reality. It’s certainly an easier sell. Americans know more about mythical Camelot or the magic Land of Oz than of historic Poland.

I read that the British secret service had the best spy agency (the SOE), broke the German enigma code, and the French had the largest resistance during WWII….all wrong. The Nazi intelligence collected by the British and so coveted by the Allies was mostly furnished by the Polish Home Army, the biggest and most active resistance of all occupied Europe. One of the most valuable and prolific spies of the SOE was Christine Skarbek, a Polish national. The enigma code was broken not by the British but by three Polish mathematicians who gave the data and replica enigma machines to both Britain and France, yet the British strut about claiming total responsibility. The Polish Home Army not only performed acts of sabotage, but fought large pitched battles with Nazi army units, decoded and sent on Nazi military intelligence and information on the holocaust, as well as secret Nazi war plans and weapon systems (including the V-1 and V-2). In fact, the Polish Home Army of resistance was so large and so well organized performing actual military combat operations against Nazi regulars that it is recognized as an allied army along with Britain and the United States. The Home Army had regular commissioned army officers in its command carrying out orders directly from the Polish government in exile. Do not forget that the French surrendered to the Nazis without much of a struggle (the Vichy Government) and donated the bulk of the French army to Hitler’s command as did the Czechs, Slovaks, and Austrians. That’s another thing you don’t easily find in the history books and that cannot be by oversight.

Poland contributed no army units to the Nazis; they fought the Nazis instead. After the USSR invaded, the Polish government, army, air force, and navy all evacuated to England to continue the battle, those that stayed to defend their homeland slinked off into the forests to continue their fight.

From 1939 to 1945 the war raged in Poland. Poland was occupied by two enemies, so this not so secret war was not the familiar fighting along a front but more like the carnival game of Whack a Mole and it was savage. Virtually every Pole fought, in one way or another, with every fiber of their soul and every single Pole was surrounded by an enemy of vastly superior numbers. The Polish government-in-exile fought as an ally with Britain and the United States. A quarter million soldiers under British command were Polish regulars of the Polish army and they fought as Polish units under the command of their government-in-exile. Why don’t people hear about these facts?

Popular treatises, discussions, and profiles concerning art, music, science, literature, or politics seem to consistently overlook or minimize the work of Poles in general while under the presumption of intellectual impartiality. Didn’t the people of Poland contribute anything to mankind?

Indeed, they did. It could be further argued that they contributed more to Europe than most other nations, and they certainly paid a steep price to do so. The Poles refused to be unjust, refused to be intolerant, brutal, or unfair. Their desire for peace and fairness would be interpreted as a weakness, even stupidity, but nothing was further from the truth. They felt their way was the just and proper way to live and govern and they dearly wanted to keep it.

So who are these Poles? What is a Pole? The people who call themselves Poles weren’t always those who were born there or even of Slavic blood. Throughout history, many left their native land to come to the land of the Poles for the promise of refuge, freedom, and peace much like the U.S.A. today. It was Europe’s safe house, especially for Jews. When they embraced the Polish ideals and fell in love with their new land, they too became Poles in spirit and heart, and they never considered themselves to be anything else but a Pole and neither did Poland. During the partitioning of Poland, the Polish language was forbidden to be spoken or taught, their traditions outlawed, and their culture restricted. The word Poland was to be erased from speech and print and forgotten by the entire world. The Poles reacted by becoming even more Polish. For well over a century the Polish language lived mother to child, its culture and nationalism lived father to child. Emigrants once landed elsewhere, much like those Poles who went to France, loudly pronounced they were Polish and refused to be labeled anything else. They made sure everything they did or achieved had the label of Poland all over it.

Poland was indeed still alive. It lived in story, spirit, and song in every Pole’s heart. It went with every Pole in their back-packs, carpetbags, or rucksacks over the shoulder as they walked the rails of Europe. As long as a Polish heart still beat, so did Poland’s.

Poland was more than a nation; it was a place for creative people of spirit and imagination to congregate. While history notes that the favorite gathering places for the intellectual and artistic of Europe were Rome, Vienna, and Paris, so it was also Prague, Krakow, and Warsaw. Poland, unlike the rest of Europe, did not reject people because they were different. On the contrary, Poland embraced them. The land of the Poles became, and remained throughout their history, the most cosmopolitan, progressive, tolerant, and free country in medieval Europe. For these reasons, it was marked for destruction by the racist, ultra-conservative, non-tolerant, absolute, totalitarian movements and nations that felt threatened by the very existence of something like a Poland. To them, Poland was a rouge nation. It became necessary for these nations to cloak the eyes of their people from the knowledge of a Poland, to eliminate the nation of Poland and the memory of it, and to crush the spirit of the people that dared to create it. Fortunately, they failed to erase Poland, its people, their culture or their spirit. Unfortunately, they did well at concealing the history of Poland, its contributions, and its accomplishments which persists to this day.

When I read the typical article about the Polish people they are described as a happy and industrious people, whose folk dress consists of short pants, suspenders, colorful embroidered blouse, and hat with short brim. The women folk dress is a colorful full skirt with embroidered apron and head scarf. Their favorite dishes are dumplings, sauerkraut and sausage and they love the concertina and the lively polka…Yeah right, and the Dutch wear wooden shoes.

Doesn’t that also describe Germans; just substitute a tuba for the concertina? Yes, but no. Germans do not dress or act like that in ordinary life, and neither do Poles.

American history books focus on English history since America was created from British colonies and any previous history extension would naturally be that of British history. However, who fought for American independence, who fought in America’s wars, and who contributed to America’s greatness and progress? There were many of foreign birth…Polish birth. They did not come here to fight for Anglo-Saxon Protestant freedom; they fought for freedom for every race, every creed, every American. They fought for the American ideal, the American promise of freedom, fairness, and fraternity. American history should not be limited to English colonists, minimizing those with funny names. America is a stewpot of many nationalities and that is what makes America special and unique. Many foreign countrymen helped make America great as well as free from the very beginning of its struggle for independence…especially the Poles.

The story of the people of Poland starts long, long before there ever was a land called Poland. Before we embark on our journey, we must first find out where we must start, how they got where they are, and how Poles came to be and fit in with the rest of the world. Most chronicles about Poland skip this very important epoch and begin when Poland becomes sanctioned as a kingdom by the Pope 1000 years ago. However, this first part is necessary and essential for us to fully understand and grasp the spirit of the Polish people and disprove the malicious slander that they had to combat throughout their history.

Much of what people in the West believe about Poland, Polish culture, and the Poles today is a product of years, even centuries, of misinformation, deceit, and malice by outside cultures, especially about Polish origins. Poles were labeled as Asian, an invader of Europe, as a pretext to eliminate it and steal its land. For this reason, we are obligated to walk through the shadows of long ago tracing the ancient journey of Mankind into Europe itself. We will show that the Poles not only belong in Europe, but were among the founding fathers.

1. The Decoding of Mankind

This gave us a faded map of our travels and detours as we

moved to fill the world…like a trail of breadcrumbs.

M ost people will occasionally muse as to where they came from, that is, where their ancestors originated. So it is with our story. Where did the original Poles come from? Where and when did Poland start? How did they manage to become the largest and most powerful country in Europe? Why were they feared and then hated? Why did they decline in power? How did they survive as a people and culture under such cruel oppression? All this will be answered in our travels, but we must start from the beginning.

Early human migration theories were based on ancient claims that were somewhat of a political nature. Early men of science, attempting to be non-controversial, were careful not to challenge these very sensitive issues. After all, the scientific process requires proof in order to change any established belief, however tenuous. Prior to this century linguistics, cultural practices, and pottery shards were the only things we had to write that chapter in the history of mankind, that and common belief of the time.

So why do we have to go there, to the start? To understand the Polish people, we must understand who, what, where, when, and why this maliciousness took place. That will be revealed as we turn history’s pages and travel through their story.

Anglo-Saxons claim to have occupied all of Europe before the Slavic people entered, and then only after the Saxons evacuated that area to invade the Roman Empire. The Slavs were painted as Asian, foreign to Europe, and didn’t belong. This gave the Saxons the pretext to steal from and plunder the peaceful Slavs. Early migration charts illustrated virtually every culture that entered Europe as migrating right through that area of land now called Poland and the Slavs showing up much later with Attila the Hun.

However, that didn’t make sense when you look at other factors, like the fact most of Poland was covered with ice before, during and after modern man entered Europe, and the kingdoms of early Europe didn’t exist until after Rome colonized much of western and southern Europe. Nevertheless, a wonderful thing happened over the last 65 years or so. Our DNA was decoded.

The scientists that were working on this for so many years discovered, identified, and sequenced that magic molecule that makes us unique as humans and as individuals; the double-helix molecule DNA (Deoxyribonucleic Acid) that describes the human genome. By accomplishing this, scientists gave us the tools that revolutionized the disciplines of medicine, biology, anthropology, and genealogy. The fascinating work in this field has resulted in many Nobel prizes (at least 10 to date). These molecular biologists gave the world the ability to identify fallen soldiers, paternity, maternity, criminals, victims, and innocents. Recently, new technology enabled scientists to reduce the required tissue test size to an incredibly small sample.

This gave us the ability to trace our ancestry, along with the procedures, methods and equipment to read the DNA of all living things, and, just as importantly, things that once lived. That, combined with carbon dating, language anthropology, and archeology, allowed genealogy to take a quantum leap as to when and where we came from as a people and how we got to where we are today.

Human DNA consists of 46 chromosomes. The DNA code is a sequence of four nucleobases (adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine), identified by the letters A, T, G and C, and are always found in pairs. These in turn are called base pairs. The 46 chromosomes of human DNA consist of three billion base pairs.

Ninety-eight percent of the human DNA only defines us as upright primates (two legs & arms, lungs, opposing thumbs, spleen, that sort of thing). That remaining 2% is still enormous in size (60 million nucleobases or characters for the Y chromosome, 16,569 for mtDNA), makes us quite different, defines us as human, and yields much detailed information about heredity. That 2% is called the human genome. Y-DNA and mtDNA are different parts of the DNA molecular sequence. Further study also revealed how DNA itself evolves, or mutates, and at what rate over time (approximately 30 years for minute mutations of the Y chromosome, 10,000 years for mtDNA). Mutations in our DNA seem to occur with major changes in environment rather than time periods. The major mutations in the Y chromosome occur on an average of 9,000 years and are called haplogroups denoted by letter (A, B, C, etc.) with A being the first haplogroup mutation from our African forefathers (Y being the original), but the letters do not necessarily denote lineage, only chronological order. For instance, the R haplogroup of most Europeans mutated from the P haplogroup. Q also mutated from P but at an earlier time than R. Minor mutations are denoted by a number and alternating small case letter following the haplogroup designation letter (E1a, E1b, E1a1a, etc.). The basic designation for a lineage is the first three characters. We will be dealing mainly with R1a and R1b. These are the two dominant haplogroups of Europe. R1a is the predominant haplogroup of the Slavs; R1b is the predominant haplogroup of Anglo-Saxons. Both came from the same seed (haplogroup R1), born in the same briar patch (the Caucasus Valley), first R1a, later R1b, almost at the same time geologically speaking.

Only 75 years ago, the only way to judge the age of something was by how deep it was buried under the soil or in what soil layer it was found. Likewise, comparing found artifacts with other cultures known in time or guesstimating the primitivism of the objects were also methods used in determining antiquity and origin. This was reasonably accurate and served us well, but times and methods have changed and improved.

Carbon dating was invented in the late 1940’s and became the first significant development in dating ancient relics. All living things, plants, insects and animals alike, are made of carbon and carbon is a stable element. That is, it will not decay, as would radioactive elements. However, it was discovered that all carbon naturally contains a very small but remarkably consistent amount of an unstable radioactive isotope of carbon. Moreover, the radioactive isotope of carbon decays at a constant rate over time. Living things continuously replace its carbon content along with its uniform radioactive constituent. As long as the plant or animal is alive, the living tissue continually replaces its carbon to form new tissue, and the percentage of radioactive carbon remains consistent with that of all other living things made of carbon. Once dead, the object no longer can replace its carbon and the existing radioactive carbon isotope slowly reduces its percentage, over time, through the natural radioactive decaying process. Scientists only have to read the radioactivity percentage of the remaining radioactive carbon isotope to determine, with an astonishing degree of accuracy, how long the item has been dead, or, in the case of a manufactured object of carbon-based material such as wood, when made.

Language anthropology compares the similarities, dissimilarities, syntax, and how consonants are formed in the mouth of languages to explore how they may be related and when common languages may have divided. Language anthropology is complex and highly speculative, but do show clear evolutionary relationships. Additionally, languages have evolved and borrowed from neighboring cultures since the beginning, and nothing evolves faster than language, just have a talk with your grandfather or teenage child.

Now we have added DNA to our anthropological toolbox. The Y chromosome is inherited patrilinerally, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is inherited matrilinerally. Both of these are clearly marked in our personal genome.

Several scientific projects involved the DNA sampling of all the cultures and native peoples throughout the world from the Arctic to the Antarctic, the Gobi to the Mohave, the Himalayas to the Rockies, the Atlantic to the Pacific and all the corners and crevasses of the Earth. This was performed to identify the relationships between the races and cultures of man. Europe was an enthusiastic partner of this research and was the biggest contributor for sampling since it is very interested in ancestry. All the forty-plus nations of Europe participated in this research and Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Poland, Russia and Spain furnished the most samples since they are the most populated countries in Europe. (See Appendix A)

As science perfected the DNA analysis procedures, it became possible to read the DNA of ancient fossils from extremely small samples. Ancient bones and relics throughout the world also were analyzed. An idea emerged while this research was being done, by tracing the relationships of all these DNA samples against the fossil record, we can not only see how we are all related, but also as to when and where we were last related. This gave us a faded map of our travels and detours as we moved to fill the world. As mankind traveled through his prehistoric journey he left his markers like a trail of breadcrumbs. The fossil record and the chromosome mutation rate filled in the details. We began to build the family tree of mankind and map the path he took.

Anthropologists have concentrated on the Y chromosome haplogroups for migration history because the female followed her mate and the male followed his tribe which in turn followed the hunt. Females were often sent to other villages for betrothal. Also, like today, males might interact with local females, but move on. Likewise, the Y haplogroups mutate more often giving a more accurate and detailed map for these migrations and it isn’t difficult to identify the haplogroup it mutated from. The mtDNA is rather evenly spread throughout Europe and is almost useless for determining migration patterns there, but extremely useful in the migrations out of Africa and from continent to continent for two important reasons. It mutates at much slower rate in the evolutionary process and it is well preserved in the bone tissue of fossils. Y-chromosomes are found in soft tissue which requires natural preservation like desiccation, mummification, or burial in glacial ice. With today’s technologies, mtDNA can be retrieved from fossils up to 300,000 years old, but Y-chromosomes are dependent on intentional or natural preservation and luck because it has a half-life of 521 years. This means that after 521 years only one half of the chromosomes have not fragmentized, after 1042 years a quarter still exist intact, 1563 years, an eighth and so on. However, even partial Y-DNA fragments can be entered into a computer which can reconstruct the DNA sequence like a jigsaw puzzle. Even a minute sample of tissue has thousands of cells with DNA information, so the chances of retrieving a meaningful sequence of the human genome, sufficient for haplogroup identification, are very good but limited in usefulness to about 20,000 years maximum, exactly the time mankind was populating Europe.

The existing theories and knowledge about early humanoids and their movement were basically substantiated, yet strange and unexpected things turned up in these travels. The data created a much sharper focus which is still being deciphered and discussed today. When this new data is compared to ancient climatic, environmental, and anthropological research (accomplished for entirely different purposes), the answers become obvious. The pieces of the puzzle fit. All this research revealed several facts, one of which is that we are very lucky or very blessed, probably both, to be alive today. We will use this new knowledge to trace our ancestry from the beginning, and then track their footprints back to today.

Please do not feel that this travelogue denies or challenges the Bible, Torah, or Qur’an. If we look closely, we may see in our mind’s eye actual proof for much of the Old Testament which had been handed down by word of mouth in stories for many millenniums before the advent of writing only 7000 years ago. We may see, with our imagination, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the eviction from the Garden, the Great Flood, and the Tower of Babel.

2. The Journey to Europe

Primitive stone tools changed proto-humans from prey to predator. They now were officially hunter-gatherers. Before, they were just gatherers.

O ur voyage starts at the dawn of Man and walks us through our great migration to the Caucasus Mountain region (where Caucasians got their name) and the further migrations beyond that valley. We will not follow the trails into Asia, Africa, or the new worlds of Australia, Polynesia or the Americas. We will closely follow only that trail into Europe where the Slavic ancestors came from and explore the diversity of languages and locale of all of Europe’s founding fathers. From the very beginning we will follow only that segment of humanity that would someday be called Europeans, then Slavs, then Poles. Others will travel with us and as they go their separate ways we will leave them for the pages of other history books to follow. Then we will grow with the Polish nation to where they are today. We will follow their footprints and see what they saw back then and we will attempt to feel what they felt. We will rejoice and suffer with them.

The Paleolithic Age (Old Stone Age) had started with the first introduction of crude stone tools by early proto-humans about 500,000 BC. The tools weren’t much more than sharpened or blunt stones used as hammers, knives, axes, scrapers, and spear points. Certainly, stones, bones, and sticks were used as tools without being worked long, long before then. Yet, these primitive crude stone tools changed proto-humans from prey to predator. They now were officially hunter-gatherers. Before, they were just gatherers. The rules of the game changed. No more chewing on grasses, berries, grubs, and leaves to subsist, or running for your life when a large animal approached. From then on it was a high protein diet, at least while the hunting was good. As their diet changed, the proto-humans’ brain size began to increase. They began to innovate, create, and rationalize.

Sometime between 200,000 and 160,000 BC, DNA tells us that Modern Man was born in an area in east central Africa somewhere near Lake Victoria. Our last known proto-human ancestor is Homo erectus, but the DNA gap between erectus and sapiens is large and the missing link or links have not been found. We had suddenly just…appeared.

Our mitochondrial DNA also tells us that a modern human woman was born around 140,000 BC from which all humans today are descended from. Anthropologists call this woman Eve. This is not an attempt to place her Biblically, nor show disrespect for the Old Testament, but only to pay homage and respect to this ancient woman. The first ice age was peaking and the Earth was colder then, about 12 to 13 degrees F colder, but Equatorial Africa was temperate, bountiful and lush, the best place on Earth to be.

Eve certainly was not the first modern human, nor was she alone. She probably lived with a small family of Homo sapiens just like her or perhaps within a larger grouping. This group had no reason to migrate. The climate was good. The prairies were flushed with green grasses and forested areas yielded vegetables, nuts and fruit for the picking. Large herds of antelope grazed the grasslands. Birds sang their songs and rivers and streams provided cool clean water. Rain quenched the landscape. Fishing and hunting were not difficult to find or harvest. This was her cornucopia, her Garden of Eden. There certainly must have been food enough for all, for her descendants stayed there for quite awhile.

Yet, she was the most remarkable woman in the history of mankind…..she had the only offspring whose descendants survived and now fill, reap and populate the entire Earth. She is the super great-grandmother of us all. Everyone. Our DNA tells us so. We all carry her mitochondrial DNA marker.

What about her mother? Wouldn’t she have been the first? Or her mother before that?? What is meant by Eve is that she is the most recent common female ancestor of us all, and she almost certainly did have her mother’s mitochondrial marker, unless she happened to be the very first with that human mutation of her mtDNA, but that is unlikely. Her children, or at least some of her children, were just luckier than everyone else’s, or perhaps they were chosen. What about Adam?? Girl babies as well as boy babies are produced by both a father and mother together and the father determines the sex of the offspring. Mitochondrial DNA is matrilinerally inherited, Y chromosomes are patrilinerally inherited. Still, even then, mothers objectively chose the fathers and Eve chose very, very well. If we were to stumble upon her bones, sadly, we wouldn’t know her. Nevertheless, she exists somewhere in antiquity and this is proven through our mtDNA. God blessed her with us.

The most recent common male ancestor of us all will arrive about 100,000 BC in the same area of Africa as his super-great, grandmother. Our DNA says so. He was not the mate of Eve, Adam was, but he was her descendant; I call him Proavus primoris which is Latin for first great grandfather.

We tend to think of these Stone Age humans as solitary, knuckle-dragging, cave-dwelling, club carrying, forehead-sloped, dim-witted, hairy, muscular oafs that hunted and gathered whatever they stumbled over. This absolutely was not the case. These early humans built thatch and animal skin shelters or huts for their families, utilized fire in fire pits for warmth and wore body cloaks from animal skins. Some may have made some sort of type of body fitting clothing as bone needles have been found at their camp sites and, like us, they had little body hair for warmth. Body coverings being of organic material and therefore perishable will not be found in those very early sites, but clues supporting some sort of body covering do exist. They apparently stayed in social groups, or extended families. Large groups meant they shared, or at least traded. It is hard to think of this as a Stone Age, especially since tools were being produced from other materials such as bone, wood, leather, and fiber, but not metal.

This era is called the Paleolithic Age and it began with us, Modern Man, even though earlier proto-humans were using stone tools. Modern Man probably lived in some sort of lean-to or hut made from leaves, thatch, or animal skins sewn, and poles lashed, with animal sinew. The vast majority of Homo sapiens live in these huts or animal skin tents since there were not enough natural shelters to go around. They certainly had control of fire and perhaps roasted their meat. Cooking made the meat taste better and easier to chew and digest. Without their knowing, cooking also killed harmful bacteria and parasites. Some anthropologists have speculated that they may have even fashioned crude rafts and used hollowed gourds as cups or bowls. They probably made fire as flint was available. Heavy clothes were not necessary in east equatorial Africa, perhaps an animal skin cloak and waist wrap mainly for protection from insects, rain, and occasional cold nights.

They felt emotions just as we do and would smile, cry and laugh as we do today. Elders as well as children were well cared for. We know this as some remains of early Man have been found that had broken, but healed, leg and arm bones. Those early men had been incapacitated but were provided for by others during their several months of disability. They cared and were cared for.

We can only wonder and marvel about them, but there was absolutely nothing remarkable about these people at all. They would have been our average height today, certainly not outside our normal range. In fact, if they showered and shaved, combed their hair, and dressed as we do today; they could walk down our streets and not draw much attention. That is because they were us. They would be much more amazed by us than us by them.

The total human population of the Earth at this time (and later) has always been a topic of wide speculation. The estimates range from 20,000 to 50,000. That’s all. Not enough to fill the New Orleans Superdome. However, this is based mainly on our DNA. There might have been other strains of DNA that died out and haven’t been discovered. The normal adult life span was about 38 years, based on the fossil record, and the child mortality rate was very high. Of those that made it to adulthood, only 25% would live beyond 40 years. Furthermore, a nomadic lifestyle tends to a low proliferation rate. Considering hazards, disease, high child mortality rate (only 50% would reach 6 years of age or older), and short life expectancy of adults, every mating pair of humans alive would had have to produce six living children just to maintain a static population within a useful window of 20 child producing years, and you can’t move far or often with a pregnant female and expect a successful birthing.

The first wave of migration apparently took place about 125,000 BC and went north along the Nile River. Unfortunately, these early travelers never passed beyond the Levant (the future Holy land) and did not survive for whatever reasons. We only have their bones. There was a great drought at about that time as the earth’s temperature rose 10 to 12 degrees F above today’s average. Science tells us at that epoch almost the entire continent of Africa and the Middle East turned severely arid, and by 90,000 BC these migrants had disappeared. They had failed the test. The great Sahara Desert was created during the first ice age which put pressure on all living things in northern Africa. Ice ages have that effect on climate. The water becomes locked far away in glacial ice, the cool air cannot carry enough moisture to create rain, sea levels drop, and the great deserts (that we know today) formed. Humankind may have compressed into smaller groups within Africa that were close to large fresh water lakes such as Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Nyasa. Things were about to change. Mankind, or at least part of it, would begin to look for another home.

3. The Great Migration

Their compass was the coast, which guaranteed water, vegetation, building materials, and a food source.

T here were five great ice age s during Earth’s history, but only the last two occurred during the history of Modern Man (Homo sapiens). I refer to these last two as the first and second ice ages as they are the only ones that occurred during the age of Modern Man and had any affect on our story and yes, they had a big effect. The first ice age had peaked about 140,000 BC but then Earth’s temperature rose rapidly for a few thousand years. After the first failed migration, a second migration started at about 85,000 BC. These were all descendents of Proavus primoris who was, like everyone else, a descendant of Eve.

Various groups of modern man began to move north, south, east and west from their original birthplace in east central Africa. This marked the start of the second great migration. This one continued for 70,000 years and would fill the entire habitable world. Why the urge to migrate at this time is unknown and probably due to over-crowding. Our DNA suggests that there was a great expansion in our population at this time. Even in the best of those times, several square miles would be required to feed a single family at a prime location. Or perhaps it was just wanderlust; who really knows?

The groups that headed south occupied southern Africa as do their descendents today. The groups that headed west occupied central and western Africa. The ones that went north and settled along the Nile would someday, many thousands of years later, organize themselves into the Ethiopians and Nubians, but the Sahara Desert hindered them from wandering north in number, after all, these were Stone Age hunter-gatherers. We will not track these groups and will leave them for now as they seek their own destiny.

The group that headed east crossed the Strait of Mandab (into what today is known as Yemen) which at this time would have had a narrow land bridge as the sea level was 195 feet lower than today. Only those groups that crossed the Strait of Mandab are who we are concerned with because all the non-African people of the entire world would be spawned from them. These migrants would be the ancestors of Asia, Polynesia, Australia, the Americas, and all of Aryan Europe. The fossil record and DNA tells us so. They were likely of D and F haplogroups. E was probably in today’s Ethiopia.

They would continue across the southern Arabian Peninsula, hugging the sea coast along the way and over the Strait of Hormuz land bridge, occupying an area in much later times called Iran. They would continue down to the southern tip of India and would follow the endless coast as they ventured further into the unknown. All along this route, deserts or mountains lay inland. The sea coast would offer more moderate temperatures comforted by cool sea breezes, flat soft terrain, ample food, resources, and freedom from large dangerous animals or small venomous ones hidden in grass. Moving too far inland was risky. Inland meant mountains, deserts, jungles, large animals, and a restricted view of what lay ahead.

These groups traveled eastward following the Iranian then Pakistani and Indian seacoasts. The journey was not succinct, and took many generations, perhaps 500 or so. The direction was general over time, some generations paused, some doubled back and some went off into nowhere. Their compass was the coast, which guaranteed water, vegetation, building materials, and a food source. The individual groups were not looking to go to the ends of earth as they did not know what existed before them. Still, they pushed further. Life was easier along the coast. They had become, in effect, people of the beach living on roots, vegetation, coconuts, clams, crabs, fish, seafowl, eggs, turtles, and occasionally small mammals. They only wished to go where the living was more suitable for game and appropriate climate, but they could not out-distance other supporting groups of their kind. Instinctively, as with all mammals, they knew, without knowing, they needed others for gene pool diversity. Groups that met in passing would pause and trade information, tools, food, and exchange females. Females were certainly not a commodity, but they desired to mate and knew they needed to leave the family unit to do so. They knew they someday would bid a tearful good-bye and leave with a non-family male (or perhaps vice-versa). These encounters were usually friendly, but occasionally may have been otherwise. The migration would take thousands of years. Even so, by 75,000 BC the line of human settlements stretched along the ocean coastline all the way from the African homeland, across southern Arabia and Iran, to the southern tip of India, beyond into southern Indo-China, and northward along the southeastern China coast; a trip of 12,500 miles, equal in distance to half way around the world. The migration averaged 1.25 miles per year, 18 feet per day, and 15 inches per step.

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The Great Migration

The first migration traveled up the Nile at 125,000 BC, but died out at 90,000 BC. A second migration began in 85,000 BC and would populate the entire world outside of Africa.

Imagine, if you will, a small band of humans, perhaps several families and some acquaintances traveling through country they did not know, with only a spear and small leather bag of stone tools and herbs, encountering things they never saw before and never had to deal with.

The trip must have been arduous. Children and adults had to be fed, materials found for shelter, body wraps and tools made. There were rivers to ford, mountains to bypass, forests to navigate, and jungles to negotiate. Cobras, crocodiles, lions, jackals, tigers, hyenas, leopards, snakes to encounter and insects to endure. The trip would be very slow, indeed. There would be collateral damage to their numbers and severe tests of skill and daring. They faced known and unknown dangers every day. Disease and accidents would take its share of lives as they inched onward. Then there was the night, the beautiful star-spangled night with that glorious bright lunar orb slowly crossing the nighttime sky. As magnificent as it was, it signaled a dangerous, vulnerable time where animals called out in the dark and crept close to the huddled settlements.

We do not know how they mourned, but they were human like us and they certainly felt grief. Infant mortality would be high even in the best of times. When mortality arrived for a family, they knew they had to emotionally move on as every day was a test of survival. The surviving family had to be fed and cared for. Thankfully, the sense of family was strong, and if a head of family male passed away, a brother, father or cousin would assume responsibility for his mate and children. This was true for the head of family female as well, and an aunt or sister would care for and nurse her children, if she were to pass. No one had to ask, they just did it.

The Neanderthals did not occupy any places in the world other than Europe, Asia Minor and the northern coast of Africa, so the Neanderthal had no interaction with modern man at this time and did not slow or stop the migrating groups of humankind from traveling on, nor would these groups be blocked by glacial ice. Our proto-European groups took an easy route prancing eastward along the coastline close to the equator. Nevertheless, events were soon to severely change the destiny of Mankind and force our group to enter the cold climate of Europe.

4. Toba Lake

The entire world of Modern Man had changed over-night into a colorless, lifeless landscape of grey. We almost went extinct.

O ur DNA indicates that about 68-73,000 BC the total world population of modern man dropped suddenly and dramatically from a probable 60,000 – 100,000 to less than 10,000 and maybe as few as 1000 mating pairs . What could have happened?? We almost went extinct. At that time the climate was reasonable. Modern Man had avoided the great inland deserts of the time by following the seacoast. As it happens, at that very timeframe in history, there was one significant event that indeed was an ELE (extinction level event)...the Toba Lake super-volcano eruption.

Toba Lake is in Indonesia (Southeast Asia) on the island of Sumatra only two and one-half degrees above the equator. The lake is actually the massive caldera of the volcano (50 miles x 20 miles). The eruption, about 72,000 BC, was the largest volcanic eruption in the entire living history of mankind and is estimated at Volcanic Index 8 (class: mega-colossal). The volcano evacuated over 730 total cubic miles of ejecta (530 cubic miles of magma, and 200 cubic miles of ash). In addition, 6 billion tons of sulfur dioxide was released into the atmosphere. The ash was over 70% silicon dioxide and the heat of the volcano turned much of it to tiny shards of glass. This is not ash as we are familiar, easily smeared into a smudge. This ash was hard and sharp, like the grit used for grindstones or sandpaper. Ash fell over east Africa, all of southern Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, the Arabian Peninsula and the South China Sea. Nearby southern India would be covered with 15 feet of ash. The volcano spewed a massive ash column 30-50 miles (160 – 265,000 feet) straight up into the sky resembling a huge tower rising above the clouds. The ash column could have been seen for 500-600 miles. At the very top of the column a menacing black ash cloud spread out above the Earth for thousands of miles and blocked out the full sun for weeks.

The natural trade winds of the Earth are easterly (out of the east) at that latitude and the hot air rises at the equator and falls as cooler air at the 30 degree north and south parallels. A massive column of super hot gas and ash such as this rising up so close to the equator would spread the ash primarily westward and fall to Earth covering a band approximately 2750 miles wide and 5000 miles long, almost exactly along that long tenuous line of settlements of our migrant ancestors, all the way back to the original land of Mankind’s birth. For 9 to 14 unrelenting days the volcano would roar and ash would spew, then fall to earth.

Then it rained, not a refreshing, cleansing rain, but a black acidic rain. The climatic effect would be worldwide and devastating, and the severe environmental damage would envelop all the Earth then occupied by modern man. For the remainder of that year and the next ten to twenty years, Earth would have no summers. Average Earth temperatures plummeted 15-20 degrees F below that of today. Plant life withered and died, and with it, the animal herds.

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Toba Lake

The Toba Lake Volcano would spew ash for 1-1/2 – 2 weeks causing a severe drop in Earth’s temperature and cause a 10 – 20 years drought. Mankind almost went extinct.

Areas more distant, not under the ash fall, were not immune to the volcano’s deadly wrath. The entire African tropical rainforest belt would suffer a severe, catastrophic ten to twenty year drought. Drought would also ravage the Middle East and southern Africa rapidly removing the precious resources needed by our ancestors. The eco-cycle was badly disrupted. The entire world of Modern Man changed over-night into a colorless, lifeless landscape of grey.

Like our ancestors, the DNA of east African chimpanzees, eastern and western African lowland gorillas, Bornean orangutans, and central Indian cheetahs, tigers and macaque all indicate a severe reduction of their numbers at about 72,000 years ago. Species of animals already endangered within this killer ash fall would now forever pass into history. The rest of the die-off would take longer, some would take many years. A new way to survive was needed. The news would not be good as all the various groupings of humans scattered around were all severely reduced or eliminated where they stood. Alas, 80% to 90% of all modern humans then living would cease to exist. Most weren’t buried by ash like Pompeii many millenniums later, unfortunately, they would starve.

The populations that did survive were reduced drastically to a very precarious few. The trail of human settlements winding from the original African homeland was eviscerated leaving hundreds, or thousands of miles distance between those few humans who remained. Now, these meager groups were huddled in small refuges very far apart from each other and had no way to regroup, reconnect or help each other. Sadly, most of these survivors would die. Still, of the few remaining groups, only the smartest, strongest, and luckiest would survive.

This event also had the same effect as the Tower of Babel. Whatever small bit of common rudimentary language humanity may have still shared, if any, would disappear through distance, attrition, and environment. These few pockets of no more than a few dozen souls each would soon be speaking different languages, however primitive and small a vocabulary.

The brotherhood had ended. We were now to become different peoples. Environment, culture, diet, distance, and the severe reduction of the gene pool would increase and speed the changes in appearance of the surviving groups from each other. We were now being cleaved into the separate races of Man. Many millenniums later, these groups would meet again but as different peoples with different languages from distant lands. Instead of brotherhood and kinship, distrust and fear would mark most of those meetings.

Of all modern mankind, only in six or seven small areas would clusters of refugees remain; western Africa, southern Africa, southeastern Indo-Asia, southwestern Iran, and southeastern China. From these few meager bands the entire world would be re-populated. The group in southeastern China fathered the Oriental races and later, the American natives. The group in southeastern Indo-Asia became the Indonesians and when they pushed further, the Australians and Polynesians. The group huddled in southwestern Iran would become the Europeans and Middle Easterners. For now, it was a time to hunker down and survive in a world that seemed to be dying all around them.

After some 10-20 years of extremely hard times, the earth would slowly regain equilibrium, normalize, and begin to regenerate. In time, the land would become green again and the skies returned to blue. The lucky few that made it through began a normal life routine again. Mankind, at least a few of us, had survived its biggest and cruelest cut.

During this epoch the typical family of modern man would push themselves to the limit foraging for food and probably lived on a diet of carrion, fighting off other starving scavengers and vultures for carcasses. Fruit, nuts, and vegetables were non-existent. It was every man for himself. I’m sure vultures and jackals were abundant as they had plenty to eat, at least for awhile.

The group at the southwestern coastline of someday Iran (D) saw the desolation move right up to their doorstep. This was our group and they had to move or starve.

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The Refuges of Mankind

The surviving souls were clustered into seven probable refuges, more or less. Even there, life was tenuous. Within a decade 90% of Mankind would perish. Group D would go on to populate Europe and the Middle East.

What was to become of them? Of those few surviving groups, they had the poorest resources available to them. Inland, the landscape revealed the torment of the relentless pressure of the Indian continental plate pushing against the Asian continental plate. This land was twisted and contorted creating the most mountainous areas of the old world and the highest mountains on Earth. These forces were so great it formed the Tibetan Plateau; a flat surface pushed three miles above sea level. To the east lay the dying Indian peninsula, buried in ash of the Toba volcano. To the west lay the dry, lifeless deserts of Arabia. To the south, the endless Arabian Sea.

All the other surviving groups, wherever they stood, were forced into their small places of refuge until the earth could replenish itself, but our group had to move or die. The only path open to them was a narrow corridor to the northwest along a river that seemed to reach out from the dead, barren desert, extending like a siren’s arm beckoning them. It called to them come with me for there is fruit and game at my source. It was the Tigris River, further upstream it would be joined by the Euphrates. That junction would someday be called the cradle of civilization. Those rivers led to the Golden Crescent. Indeed, there was game and fruit for all of their small group, the group that would father Europe and the Middle East. Their children’s children would fill the pages of the Torah, Old and New Testament, and Qur’an.

They are about to become Europeans and Middle Easterners. It was at this time, as they slowly moved north along the river that the Indo-European language began to develop, the language that would father all the languages of Europe and some of India and Iran.

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The Caucasus Valley (70,000 – 60,000 BC)

The Toba Lake event left the people stranded near the Strait of Hormuz in serious trouble. They had to move or die. They followed the only path available to them northwest along the Tigris River.

The Earth had entered an inter-glacial period of warming but the Toba Lake event caused a sudden and rapid drop of the average Earth temperature of almost 20 degrees F. The Earth had turned cold to the north. Yet this was the only way they could go. They went northwest into the forbidding cold and followed the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers north to the Caucasus Valley. They had begun the exodus that would lead them to Europe. As they traveled northwest our group began to mutate into new haplogroups, perhaps from the stress, climate, environment, or diet. It would take 10,000 years to get there. As they moved north some went inland, some stayed behind. When these proto-Europeans finally reached the bounty of the Golden Crescent about 60,000 BC, the Caucasus and Taurus Mountains stood before them as a great barrier, but moderate temperatures had returned and there was ample food and water in the crescent for their tiny number. They would stay there and regenerate.

However, they would not be alone. They had entered the land of the Neanderthal, a creature they had never encountered before. They had intelligent competition for that fruit and game the Crescent offered.

5. The Invasion of Europe

Modern man had a huge and unfair advantage over the poor Neanderthal. Modern man could speak.

O ur ancestral pilgrims paused as this area was bountiful, but this was also the home of the Neanderthal. The Neanderthals had populated Europe, Euro-Asia and the area circumscribing the Mediterranean Sea for hundreds of thousands of years before modern man showed up. No one knows what transpired or if there was any major interaction between humans and the proto-humans, but we did not leave nor advance for quite a while. They both certainly knew the other was there.

We are not descendants from Neanderthals as earlier anthropologists thought. Neanderthals and Modern Man, and apes for that matter, are completely different branches of primate. There was another proto-humanoid alive at that time that apparently lived in Asia called the Denisovans. The Neanderthal and Denisovans were proto-humans and were much closer related to each other than to Homo sapiens. They were separate and parallel branches of humanoids, not in our linage. Way, way back in antiquity we share an ancestor that was neither man nor ape, our DNA tells us so.

The Neanderthals were much better equipped to handle the cold weather and were much stronger physically. The Neanderthal better knew the terrain and the nature of the animals they hunted. They made stone tools, spears, body cloaks, leather sole sandals, and huts as did modern man. Contrary to popular belief, the Neanderthals were not dumber than our ancestors. The brain of the Neanderthal was slightly larger than that of modern man. Early 20th century anthropologists first thought incorrectly that modern man killed them off physically. This idea probably came from our instinctive fear or dislike of people who are different from us. This is almost certainly not so.

So why did the Neanderthals disappear, and modern man survive? We hastened the demise of the Neanderthal by encroachment on their environment during a period of high stress. Same as we do today with endangered animal species. It is not a coincidence that 135 species of European mammals went extinct during the same time period mankind entered and moved through Paleolithic Europe. Ice age life was precarious enough without the influx of modern humans. The Neanderthal could not cope or compete with modern man. Modern man had a huge and unfair advantage over the poor Neanderthal. Modern man could speak.

The remains of Neanderthals reveal that they had an underdeveloped voice box. Closer related to ape than man. Oh, they could communicate OK, as we know they hunted game in groups and co-operated among themselves and perhaps even communicated