Good Old Y-MRCA

When it comes to history, I am not much interested in pre-Burger King societies. Once the Whopper was invented civilization peaked in my opinion. Everything before that was just a slow, difficult march toward the perfect sandwich.

Don’t get me wrong, I like watching a history documentary now and then. In fact, I recently watched one on the topic of our genetic ancestors. Through RNA, geneticists have identified one man who they call our “Genetic Adam.” His technical name is Y-MRCA, whatever that means. He lived 150,000 years ago and he is the ancestor of most people on Earth.

The documentary went into a bunch of facts and figures about Y-MRCA, but one fact they overlooked was this: Good old Y-MRCA had to be the world’s first player.

If ever there was a cave dwelling Casanova, it was him. How else did he impregnate enough females to eventually cover a planet with his offspring?

Wouldn’t you just love to have heard his pick up lines?

“Evening ladies,” he’d say swaggering up to a gaggle of cave girls. “Run from any interesting predators lately?”

“Sorry if I seem a bit tired just now, ladies,” he’d tell them. “I’m still a little worn out from killing that giant cave bear with a stick. You haven’t heard? Well gather around and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Too bad fire hasn’t been invented yet, Trina,” he says in that causal, nonchalant way of his. “Its awful cold in this cave. We might have to rely on body heat to stay warm.”

I only have three kids and I have a hard enough time keeping up with their birthdays. It must have been a nightmare for poor old Y-MRCA, especially considering the written language had not been invented yet.

Thank goodness he lived before Chuck E. Cheeses or parent\teacher conferences. He dodged having to buy his kids the mandatory cell phone, too, or something called “Ugg Boots” like I had to buy when my daughters reached full whining age.

Overall, life had to be pretty good for our man Y-MRCA. Love her and leave her was his modus operandi, but nobody was complaining. In fact, they were queuing up to be loved and left. He didn’t even have to worry about the father of his conquests. Shotguns hadn’t been invented yet.

Don’t you know the other cave dudes absolutely hated him.

“What’s he got that we don’t got,” one guy would complain to his buddies around a small campfire (which apparently had just been invented).

“Two eyebrows for one thing,” another would say.

“And all the girls,” yet another would whine.

Meanwhile, feminine giggles interspersed with Y-MRCA’s throaty laugh echoed through the cave.

Don’t you know the ladies grieved when Y-MRCA finally shuffled on off to the great cave in the sky? My guess is he didn’t die in his sleep of old age, either. My guess is he finally messed around with wrong cave girl and wound up on the wrong end of a heavy club swung by her mate. Or maybe, like Caesar on the steps of the Senate eons later, a bunch of irate cave men gathered their spears and let him have it on the path to the big cave.

Was there a genetic “Eve?” you ask.

According to the documentary, yes there was.

She must have been the Helen of Troy of pre-history. I bet she had most of her teeth and styled her beard hair in a playful coiffure. Maybe she pioneered shaving her legs. She probably had the most precocious way of gutting an antelope you ever saw, too.

I bet all her fellow cave girls sat around a fire and asked, “What does she have that we don’t have?”

“Two eyebrows for one thing,” was the answer.

Here’s the crazy thing. Genetic Adam and Genetic Eve did not live at the same time. In fact, odds are they lived thousands of years apart, yet most the planet is related to them.

Talk about long distance relationships.