Is There Really a Gene for Headhunting?

As someone with scientific training, related to a Nobel geneticist (a farmer/agriculturalist) it has piqued my curiosity whether or not there really is a "gene" for hunting (and/or "headhunting"). Using the results of my DNA test from Ancestry.com, I plugged them into a computer model called "Eurogenes K7" on the Gedmatch.com site.

This particular computer model is specifically designed to identify Western European Hunter/Gatherer genes similar to those found from 8,000 year old archeological digs in the Loschbour, Belgium cave site.

Statistically speaking, highest values for this gene are found in Estonians and Lithuanians, where values run to as high as 50%.

My results, as you will see, are much higher (by 20 to 50%) than even those found in the highest-frequency population. This is interesting, because I am also undeniably related to a very substantial (world-famous) family of farmers... One would therefore expect me to have a much lower amount of the WHG genes.

However, in light of the fact that I am a Headhunter (and a proud one, at that), it seems fairly clear that the "hunter" genes have proven dominant, in my case. I think that this makes a decent start for establishing why it is that most people are not capable of being Headhunters... they don't have the biological make-up for it.

Next time someone tells you: "Anybody can be a Headhunter"... just ask them what their genetic makeup is on the Eurogenes K7 model and see what they say.

As far as actual hunting goes, I don't particularly like guns or killing game, although I enjoy fishing and hunting rock-scallops while diving. My 'hunting instincts' are channeled almost entirely into Recruiting.

Here are the test results I was speaking of:

Eurogenes_ANE K7 Admixture Proportions

This utility uses the Eurogenes ANE K7 model, created by Davidski (Polako). Questions and comments about this calculator
should be directed to him at his Project Blog . Revised 2014-Sep-12

Kit Number: M001350 Iteration: 123 Delta-Q: 1.635908e-08 Elapsed Time: 16.25 seconds

Population	Chr--> 1		2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22
ANE		16.4	13.2	10.0	20.0	15.9	13.5	16.6	16.4	13.8	11.9	19.3	8.9	16.7	12.1	11.0	19.0	14.3	12.0	10.6	10.7	20.7	18.5
ASE		1.3	3.1	2.1	-	2.7	5.2	-	1.8	0.9	-	-	-	-	0.9	0.8	-	2.8	6.1	3.7	4.0	7.7	0.2
WHG-UHG		63.0	58.9	82.6	67.1	68.7	63.0	58.3	58.5	66.6	68.9	61.6	68.2	71.8	68.5	67.3	73.0	66.7	63.6	62.6	64.9	52.5	58.6
East_Eurasian		-	-	-	-	4.3	-	2.6	-	1.3	3.1	-	-	-	-	2.2	-	-	1.6	-	3.1	-	-
West_African		-	1.8	0.7	0.9	-	-	-	-	0.2	-	-	0.4	-	-	-	-	-	2.6	-	0.4	-	-
East_African		-	-	0.3	0.9	-	0.2	1.6	2.4	1.5	-	5.1	-	0.3	1.2	4.1	-	-	0.7	1.6	-	-	-
ENF		19.2	23.0	4.2	11.2	8.3	18.1	20.9	20.8	15.7	16.2	14.0	22.5	11.3	17.3	14.7	8.0	16.1	13.4	21.4	16.9	19.2	22.7
Number of SNPs eval:		14382	14691	12621	10611	11232	12243	9857	10382	9179	9937	9135	9058	6754	6192	5826	5854	5061	5777	3384	5006	2911	2545

If you are a Headhunter (as most of the readers on this site are), and have an interest in genetic genealogy, please feel free to contact me and share genomes, if you like. Even though this clips off at gene 14 (of 22), you can clearly see ALL my chromosomes have WHG markers above those of the Estonian/Lithuanian control group, with "world's highest WHG frequency" in the general population.