Bigfoot, Yeti, and the Last Neanderthal, page 31
I would soon be the first to know whether or not Zana's descendants had inherited any of her African DNA. Khwit's tooth had already told me that Zana's matrilineal ancestors had come from Africa, but not how much, if any, of the rest of her genome was also African. I managed to do things in the right order. Before looking at the results from Zana's descendants I fed in the data from the controls, the unrelated Abkhazis that Dmitri Pirkulov had sampled. The screen displayed each of their chromosomes in segments whose colour indicated their origin: blue for European, green for Asian and red for African. The first control showed blue and green segments but no red. The second, though having a different pattern of blue and green on their genetic portraits, none were red. So it continued. After half an hour I knew that all twelve of the unrelated Abkhazis had absolutely no African DNA in their genomes.
I reformatted the program and prepared to enter the data from Zana's six descendants. This was the moment of truth. I pressed the key that started the program and over an agonising two minutes the chromosome portrait of Zana's great-great-grandson, Zoya Makarian, materialised on the screen. Among the blue and green were seven long and eight short segments of DNA that were bright red. African! The program calculated that 5.9% of Zoya Makarian's genome was from Africa. I carried on to the next descendant, Manana Jologua, Zana's great-granddaughter. She had even more long stretches of red in her chromosome portrait, estimated by the program at 8.8% higher than Zoya Makarian's, probably because she was one generation closer to Zana. When I painted the chromosome portrait of Zana's great-great-great-granddaughter Indira Haytzuk she certainly had African segments, but only 2.7% of her genome was coloured red, a reflection that she was one generation further removed from Zana than Zoya Makarian and two more than Manana Jologua. By the time I had the genetic portraits of Zana's six descendants and found segments of African DNA in all of them I was exhausted, but I knew I had made a very important discovery.
I added the figures for their African component to the pedigree given to me by Dmitri Pirkulov, which is shown in an appendix. The African component of Zana's descendants ranged from 2.7% to 8.8%. One was a grandchild, four were Zana's great-grandchildren, and the sixth was a great-great-grandchild. If the African component in their genomes had come from Zana, which is a reasonable assumption given that the regular Abkhazi genomes that made up the rest of the ancestry had none, then I could calculate the African component in the DNA of Zana herself, even though she had died over 120 years ago. In each generation of her descendants, Zana's genetic contribution would be roughly halved. Even allowing for the expected random fluctuations, it was straightforward to show from these figures just how much of Zana's nuclear DNA was African. The details are confined to an appendix but the answer is very simple. Zana's DNA was 100% African. Stunning.
How was it that a full-blooded sub-Saharan African woman came to be living wild in the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains in the middle of the nineteenth century? None of the explanations for this remarkable fact are straightforward.
There had been a few African slaves in Abkhazia in earlier centuries when it was part of the Ottoman Empire and, theoretically at least, Zana could have been an escaped slave. The difficulty with this most prosaic of explanations is that although the slave theory might explain her African DNA it certainly does not account for her remarkable appearance. For a start, she was nothing like a modern African in her looks or her behaviour: ‘Zana had all the characteristics of a wild animal . . . the most frightening feature was her expression which was pure animal, not human . . . She dug herself a hole in the ground and slept in it . . . she walked naked even in winter, tearing dresses that she was given into shreds . . . her athletic power was enormous. She would outrun a horse and swim across the Moskva River even when it rose in violent high tide.1 Feral children and adults are rarely healthy, and are usually discovered on the verge of starvation, yet Zana possessed superhuman strength and athleticism. Is it likely that an escaped slave girl could have sustained herself in the wild, and so well that she developed her remarkable physical attributes? Almost certainly not.
The other contradiction was that Zana's mitochondrial DNA, deduced from the results from her son's tooth, had closer matches with West rather than East Africa. The Ottoman slaves were all from East Africa, usually coming through the slaving port of Zanzibar off the coast of Tanzania.
Zana's vigorously healthy physical condition bears all the hallmarks of a life in the forest lived not alone but in the company of others, as does the similarity between descriptions of her appearance and the numerous eyewitness accounts of almasty collected by Koffman from all over the Caucasus during her countless expeditions. These consistently describe an elusive forest people with dark skin covered in red-brown hair. Zana never spoke, not to herself, nor to her captors. Even a community of escaped slaves living wild in the forest would have conversed with one another and Zana would surely have made some attempt at doing so with her captors. Even if she did not know Abkhazi, there is always scope for some sort of verbal communication, and in time she would surely have picked up a few words of the language of her captors. But there was nothing. Not a word, not a gesture, not even the smallest attempt at communication.
The well-researched contemporary descriptions suggest to me that Zana had nothing to do with the modern world. Porchnev and Heuvelmans were quite reasonable in their hypothesis that Zana was a surviving Neanderthal but we now know from the mitochondrial DNA analysis of her son's tooth that she was not. But if not a Neanderthal, was she fully human? She was certainly a member of the genus Homo. That much was certain from the fact that she produced healthy, fertile children. We know from earlier chapters that hybridisation between different human species has certainly occurred in the past and so it is conceivable that her sons Eshba and Khwit were hybrids. Zana may have been in the genus Homo without being fully Homo sapiens.
Are there clues in the mitochondrial DNA sequence recovered from Khwit's tooth? The details place Zana in the clan of Lingaire, also called L2C, one of the oldest of the thirteen matrilineal African clans. All African clans are very ancient, much older than any outside Africa, for the simple reason that humans have been in Africa far longer than anywhere else. The clan of Lingaire is around 150,000 years old, ancient even for Africa.
Our Homo sapiens ancestors left Africa to settle in the rest of the world around 100,000 years ago. It was neither a large nor representative exodus, and the members of only one of the thirteen African clans took part. This was the clan of Lara, also known as L3A. Though Zana's mitochondrial DNA clearly establishes her ultimate origin as African it does not tell us when her ancestors left, though it was not typical of the main Laran exodus. The clan of Lingaire is significantly older than the date of that diaspora, so Zana's ancestors could have left Africa before the Laran exodus of 100,000 years ago. Zana would then be a survivor from an African diaspora that fizzled out in the face of competition – the later spread of Homo sapiens that left her ancestors hanging on in the remote valleys of the Caucasus.
To begin to answer this intriguing question, I checked to see if there were any matches with Zana's mitochondrial sequence in any of the available databases. There were none that matched exactly. I also had the scraps of her nuclear genome scattered among her descendants. Again, the African segments did not match any records. Throughout The Yeti Enigma I have been critical of the speculation of others, and of premature disclosures. Suffice to say that the scraps of Zana's DNA that have floated down through time like fragments of a faded photograph, to her descendants are very, very unusual. I am hard at work making sense of it and I hope to know soon whether Zana was indeed a survivor of an antique race of humans.
If Zana's people were in the Caucasus during the nineteenth century when she was captured, they might well be still there to this day, living as they have for millennia somewhere in the wild valleys that radiate from the eternal snows of Elbrus.
30
Finale
In the end there was no need to trouble David Hume. Only if the DNA results from Bigfoot or yeti hairs had proven to be anything other than ordinary animals would I have needed to approach the great philosopher on his pedestal.
The exception was the yeti mummy that Christophe Hagenmuller brought back from Ladakh. That may have been the ‘different kind of bear’ that Reinhold Messner had consistently believed was the basis of the yeti legend. Perhaps it was more aggressive, retaining some of the habits of its polar bear ancestor, the only carnivore that regularly hunts and kills humans. But there was no need to consult Hume about this. Not yet anyway. The road ahead was clear. We need more DNA sequence information on this yeti-bear and that is already on its way. It might indeed be a ‘different kind of bear’ but it was not a primate, or a surviving Neanderthal or any other kind of hominid.
Neither were any of the Bigfoot samples from America. They had all proven to be just regular animals. However convinced the donors were of their authenticity, they had not come from any primate sasquatch, but from very ordinary mammals. Horse and cow were high on the list, both in the US and in Russia, and that may well be because so many of the samples came from the sites of Bigfoot or almasty encounters of one sort or another, rather than from the creatures themselves. Horses and cows have long, thick hairs that are more easily seen caught on bushes close to a ‘hotspot’, as many of these hairs had been. Clearly these samples of feral domesticates are straightforward misattributions. Only bears could be realistically confused with a yeti or a Bigfoot under favourable conditions, even if the good people of Teslin, Yukon, mistook the backside of a bison for a sasquatch.
The most likely explanation is that the donors, all enthusiasts, got carried away and didn't pause to consider that a hair on a bush close to where they saw or heard a Bigfoot is not certain to have come from the creature. Sightings too might not be what they seem. The phenomenon of pareidolia describes the ability of the mind to form images that are not really there, like ‘the man in the moon’ or the famous case of the face of the Virgin Mary on a piece of burnt toast. Pareidolia has probably evolved as a warning mechanism with survival advantages in the past. Michal Heaney, who was kind enough to direct me to Jeanne-Marie Koffman's original work on the almasty, put it very succinctly: ‘Far better to mistake a tree for a leopard, than a leopard for a tree.’ Pareidolia could account for some misattributed sightings, though it may be impertinent to suggest such a thing.
It has never been my purpose to explain what so many witnesses have seen or heard or indeed smelled. I set out with as open a mind as possible to test the organic remains that have been attributed to these creatures and to identify what species they belonged to. I would not have spent the effort unless I thought there was a realistic possibility, small though it may have been, of finding an anomalous primate, even if most samples were likely to be something more mundane, as turned out to be the case. There was one time, as you'll have seen in Chapter 25, when I was on the brink of losing my own scientific detachment and was only saved by the admirable logic of Sage, the park ranger. Under those conditions of high anxiety I would have been convinced that any hair I found was from a sasquatch.
From what I have seen, Bigfootologists are not, on the whole, good researchers. They lack the necessary degree of self-criticism. One of the elements of scientific training is that you should be your own fiercest critic, though many of us fail to live up to this dictum. You don't have to be right every time – indeed progress in science is a process of evolution where one theory supersedes the last, however strongly held, as new information or new thinking is revealed. All of it is based on evidence, testable, repeatable and – most important – publishable in peer-reviewed journals. There has been precious little of that in the search for anomalous primates. I hope, however, that I have shown that despite its appalling record the search for yeti, almasty and Bigfoot is not beyond the scope of science. I may not have found an anomalous primate among the hair samples I was given, but that is simply because there wasn't one, nothing more.
This project certainly could never disprove the existence of the yeti and other similar creatures, and that was never its purpose. On the contrary, it has shown that a single hair is enough to make an unambiguous identification. The next one might always be the ‘golden hair’ that provides the final proof. Many of my donors, having learned that the hair they thought was from a Bigfoot was actually from a bear or some other animal, have returned to the forests encouraged that there is now at least a way of proving and identifying what they know in their hearts is still out there.
Throughout The Yeti Enigma you have heard the stories of the aficionados and the extraordinary energy with which they follow their passion. I am quite sure that will continue, and I hope it does, with perhaps more direction to their search for proof than previously. There is no reason to abandon the search just because none of the hairs donated to this project was from an anomalous primate. There will be better ways of obtaining hair samples, better traps laid on known Bigfoot trails. Improve the way you research. Try to innovate. Already Rhettman Mullis is planning a programme of catch and release. I hope he succeeds.
Money is an issue. If the first two big questions about Bigfoot and the yeti are, ‘Do they exist?’ and, ‘What are they?’ the third is surely, ‘Who's paying?’. These tests are not cheap, at around a thousand pounds for each mitochondrial DNA analysis, and lie beyond the budget of most Bigfoot enthusiasts. I have pointed out what happens when samples are sent to laboratories without the funds to pay for the analysis. I certainly hope for an improvement here, both from Bigfootologists and any scientist who accepts a sample for analysis. For the enthusiast, choose a lab that has a good record of scientific publication and knows how to handle contaminated samples in poor condition. Insist on a proper report, not a throwaway opinion, especially of the ‘somewhere between an ape and a human’ variety. You will have wasted a potentially precious sample for nothing. For scientists, who I do feel I am in a position to criticise, just say no to samples you aren't going to treat properly. If you do accept a sample, then treat its analysis with the respect its donor is entitled to expect.
Given its popularity for the ‘gazing populace’, there is always going to be scope for hoaxers. But even that might change. After a recent Bigfoot ‘shooting’ claimed by the notorious hoaxer Rick Dyer, he was set to go on the lucrative lecture circuit through a well-known agency with an international portfolio of celebrated speakers. I was asked if I would run a DNA test on Dyer's Bigfoot body, which I agreed to do, only to find that Dyer – whose website asks the question ‘Why won't anyone f...ing believe me?’ – declined this opportunity to verify his exhibit's authenticity. It is reminiscent of the case of the Minnesota Iceman; the main difference being that while the Iceman was a professional hoax, Dyer's creature, currently on display in a parking lot in Las Vegas, is a pale imitation in a plywood coffin and not even frozen. Now that there is a way to verify these claims, how long will it be before the public tires of being dished up such obvious nonsense, the ratings fall away and we are spared any more of this mischievous and mendacious baloney? Not soon enough in my view.
Two unexpected and promising leads have come from this project. There may be a ‘different type of bear’ wandering the Himalayas, and there are expeditions leaving soon to find one alive. The case of Zana, the wildwoman from the Caucasus, is also a very rewarding outcome. We now know a lot more about this famous case, thanks mainly to the persistence of Igor Burtsev and his colleagues from Moscow's Darwin Museum. Their diligence and effort in finding and sampling Zana's relatives is a great achievement. With further genetic investigations actively under way, they might soon be able to say they have found perhaps not a Neanderthal survivor, but an antique race of humans living in the Caucasus.
I have often been asked whether I believe the yeti exists. Up to now I have refused to answer, lest it stops me having the open mind I needed. It was also an irrelevant question since I was trying to find some evidence on which to base an opinion. Funnily enough, even though there were no anomalous primates among the hairs I tested, I think my view has altered more in favour of there being ‘something out there’ than the reverse. This change of heart comes from speaking to several people, some not even mentioned in The Yeti Enigma, who have nothing to gain but who have seen things, in good light while in the company of other witnesses, that are hard to explain otherwise. To automatically reject these accounts is just as blinkered as accepting that every broken branch has been snapped or twisted by a sasquatch.
One day soon I hope to be able to approach David Hume on his pedestal with DNA evidence of anomalous primates, either my own or someone else's, that even he will accept. But spare a last thought for the yeti, Bigfoot and sasquatch peering unseen from behind a tree at those who would unmask her in the name of progress. If such creatures do exist, one thing is certain. They want nothing to do with us.
Notes
2: The Yeti Enigma
1. Rawicz, S. 1956. The Long Walk. Constable, Edinburgh.
2. Chase, S. quoted at: http://www.yowiehunters.net.
3: The Last Neanderthal
1. Greig. D.M, 1933, A Neanderthaloid Skull Presenting Features of Cleidocranial Dysostosis and Other Peculiarities, Edinburgh Medical Journal 40, 497.
2. Fleure, H.J. 1951. The Natural History of Man in Britain. Collins, London.
3. Howells, E. 2005. Good Men and True: The Lives and Tales of the Shepherds of mid-Wales. Capel Madog, Aberystwyth.
4: The Footprint that Shook the World
