Half of all Western European men are descendants of a Bronze Age 'king' who lived 4,000 years ago.

That's according to the largest ever study of global genetic variation in the Y chromosome.

Researchers believe the monarch was one of the earliest people to rule Europe in the Stone Age.

His identity remains a mystery, but scientists believe he fathered a group of nobles who then spread across Europe.

The largest ever study of global genetic variation in the Y chromosome – only held by men – has revealed when populations exploded, beginning 55,000 years ago. This complex diagram shows a type of family tree, where branch lengths are proportional to the estimated times between splits, with the most ancient division occurring around 190,000 years ago. Coloured triangles represent the major clades (shown above)

They brought with them advances in technology such as metal work and wheeled transport, according to a report in the Telegraph.

Dr Chris Tyler-Smith, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, told the paper: 'Genetics can't tell us why it happened but we know that a tiny number of elite males were controlling reproduction and dominating the population.

'Half of the European population is descended from just one man.

'We can only speculate as to what happened. The best explanation is that they may have resulted from advances in technology that could be controlled by small groups of men.'

The results revealed when populations exploded at several points in history, beginning 55,000 years ago.

Such 'bursts of extreme expansion' could be due to intrepid communities moving to new regions with a surplus of resources and the sharing of technologies helped the groups to thrive.

Half of all Western European men are descendants of a Bronze Age 'king' who live 4,000 years ago, shown by the brown dots in this graph. The discovery was made in largest ever study of global genetic variation in the Y chromosome. Scientists believe he fathered a group of nobles who then spread across Europe

Dr Tyler-Smith who led the study, said although there are some key events such as the movement of humans out of Africa that can explain some of the population explosions, other are harder to explain.

He said: 'Wheeled transport, metal working and organised warfare are all candidate explanations that can now be investigated further.'

The study analysed sequence differences between the Y chromosomes of more than 1,200 men from 26 populations around the world using data generated by the 1000 Genomes Project.

The work involved 42 scientists from four continents.

Dr David Poznik, a population geneticist at Stanford University, California, and lead author of the study explained: 'We identified more than 60,000 positions where one DNA letter was replaced by another in a man with modern descendants, and we discovered thousands of more complex DNA variants.'

These variants in the Y chromosome were used to reveal more about the lives of our ancestors.

The Y chromosome is only passed from father to son and therefore give experts a clue about male behaviours involving hunting and gathering, for example.

THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 55 million years ago - First primitive primates evolve 15 million years ago - Hominidae (great apes) evolve from the ancestors of the gibbon 8 million years ago - First gorillas evolve. Later, chimp and human lineages diverge 5.5 million years ago - Ardipithecus, early 'proto-human' shares traits with chimps and gorillas 4 million years ago - Ape like early humans, the Australopithecines appeared. They had brains no larger than a chimpanzee's but other more human like features 3.9-2.9 million years ago - Australoipithecus afarensis lived in Africa. 3-2 million years ago - Australopithecus africanus lived 2.7 million years ago - Paranthropus, lived in woods and had massive jaws for chewing 2.3 million years ago - Homo habalis first thought to have appeared in Africa 1.85 million years ago - First 'modern' hand emerges 1.8 million years ago - Homo ergaster begins to appear in fossil record 1.6 million years ago - Hand axes become the first major technological innovation 800,000 years ago - Early humans control fire and create hearths. Brain size increases rapidly 400,000 years ago - Neanderthals first begin to appear and spread across Europe and Asia 200,000 years ago - Homo sapiens - modern humans - appear in Africa 40,0000 years ago - Modern humans reach Europe Modern humans reach Europe around 40,000 years ago. Unlike our ancestors, the genus Homo, other hominins like australopithecines had flat nasal features and faculties that improved air conditioning Advertisement

The team used the data to build a tree of 1,200 Y chromosomes, showing how they are all related to one another.

As expected, they all descend from a single man who lived approximately 190,000 years ago.

But surprisingly, some branches of the tree better resembled a bush, with many branches originating at a single point.

Dr Yali Xue, lead author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, explained: 'This pattern tells us that there was an explosive increase in the number of men carrying a certain type of Y chromosome, within just a few generations.

'We only observed this phenomenon in males, and only in a few groups of men.'

The earliest explosive increases of male numbers occurred 50,000 to 55,000 years ago, across Asia and Europe, which is shortly after when Homo sapiens are thought to have migrated out of Africa.

There was then a later major expansion around 15,000 years ago in the Americas, according to the study published in the journal Nature Genetics.

The researchers wrote: 'We saw a notable increase in the number of lineages outside Africa around 50,000-55,000 years ago, perhaps reflecting the geographical expansion and differentiation of Eurasian populations as they settled the vast expanse of these continents.'

The team used data to build a tree of 1,200 Y chromosomes, showing how they are all related to one another. The project sheds light on human evolution, showing we all descend from a single man living approximately 190,000 years ago, but populations exploded when technology was shared (illustrated above)

This occurred between 10,000 and 5,000 after humans first ventured out of Africa.

Dr Tyler-Smith told MailOnline: 'Our study fully supports the out of Africa theory.

'We see an origin of Y lineages in Africa and a massive expansion in Europe and Asia 50,000-55,000 years ago, just after the time when humans are proposed to have migrated out.'

The data suggests a 'gene flow between Africa and nearby regions of Asia, 50 to 80,000 years ago'.

This supports the theory that people returned and moved around.

FIRST HUMANS LEFT AFRICA VIA THE SINAI PENINSULA The first modern humans to arrive in Europe and Asia migrated north out of Egypt around 55,000 years ago, according to a study published in May last year. The study answered a long-standing question about the route early Homo sapiens took when spreading from the African continent. It also showed most Europeans and Asians living today are more closely related genetically to people living in Egypt than in Ethiopia. This suggests Egypt was the last stop for people migrating out of Africa 55,000 years ago rather than taking a more southerly route through Ethiopia. Some scientists believed humans may have travelled from Ethiopia across the Bab el Mandeb strait to the Arabian Peninsula. However, the latest research suggested a northern route from Egypt, through the Sinai peninsula and then out into Asia and Europe was the most likely route. The findings also supported evidence that the first humans to leave Africa came into contact with Neanderthals in the Levant at the time. Advertisement

Furthermore, three new features of the tree highlight the importance of South and Southeast Asia as likely locations where people who settled in Eurasia, first came from.

There were also later expansions in sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe, South Asia and East Asia, at times between 4,000 and 8,000 years ago.

The researchers wrote: 'Our phylogeny [family tree] shows bursts of extreme expansion in male numbers that have occurred independently among each of the five continental super populations examined, at times of known migrations and technological innovations.'

Earlier population explosions may have resulted when modern humans moved to unpopulated but vast continents, where there were plenty of resources.

This would have allowed them to thrive, according to the experts.

However, the later expansions are more enigmatic.

Previous studies have suggested population bursts in 'several geographical areas after 10,000 years ago' which are associated with the spread of farming or Bronze Age culture, for example.

Dr Tyler-Smiths explained: 'Genetics does not directly tie the male expansion to a particular technology, so we can only speculate about the link.

'Given this limitation, the best example [of technologies leading to a population explosion] would be one of the R1b Y-chromosome lineages, which expanded massively in Western Europe during the Bronze Age, and might have been linked to the advances in weapons and transport then.