◌ ONE ORIGIN The story · The deep record · Scene 07

🕸️ 07 — GLOBAL KINSHIP DISTANCE VISUALIZER

Pick any two people on Earth. Count the hands between them.

Choose two places — Lagos and Utqiaġvik, Port Moresby and Tromsø — and this draws the chain of intermediaries between them: every social handshake, plus every ancestral link. The claim under test is the one everyone has heard and nobody can verify by hand: fewer than 50 links separate any two people alive. The math, not the anecdotes, decides it below.

150

Every pair, at a glance: darker means more links. Hover a cell to see the pair; click it to draw that chain. The worst pair on the grid still lands far below 50.

18 places · 324 pairs · fewest linksmost links

Why the 50-link ceiling always holds: with N people and b introductions per link, a chain reaches anyone in about logbN links. Even at the extreme where each link introduces you to only two new people, 8.2 billion people is only 33 links away — and the most barrier-heavy pair on this grid adds four. The red line is the claim.

This models a chain, it does not trace one. The logbN result comes from small-world random-graph theory (Milgram’s 1967 “small world” experiment measured about 5–6 intermediaries in the United States; Watts & Strogatz 1998 generalised it). The branching slider stands in for how many people any one person could realistically introduce you to — roughly Dunbar’s 150 for a maintained network, far fewer for weak ties. Barrier counts here (continent change, ocean crossing, terrain isolation) are a modelling choice for this page, not measured mobility data. Ancestral links follow the same logarithmic law with b = 2, which is why 33 generations covers all of humanity.

More ways we’re connected

Sixteen ways to put the same point — that every human line on Earth runs back to one place — in your own hands.

Your own numbers

Your birthday crowdA date you share with millions. Your family treeMore branches. Shared roots. Your place, real sizeA fairer view of somewhere you love. A moment we shareDifferent clocks. Happening together.

The deep record

Two chains, one continentMitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam, drawn against time. The shared ancestor counterType a crowd. Find the ancestor every one of them shares. Count the hands between usFewer than 50 links separate any two people alive. Fourteen peoples, one patternStructural universals across five continents.

Shifting the frame

Footsteps of KinshipDrag 300,000 years of leaving Africa, one toolkit at a time. Root to BranchThousands of languages branching from African roots. The Deep Time MirrorYour face, aligned with the oldest skulls we have. The Deep History Time MachineWatch borders, cities and farms fade off the planet. The Great-Grandparent MultiplierYour family tree has to loop. Here is the maths. Stardust & SoilWhat you are made of, and where each atom was forged. The Borderless Night SkySame stars. Many skies. One imagination. The Reverse Migration PostcardA line from your city back to the Great Rift Valley.

Feel the pattern

The Converging RiversEvery river runs back to the Rift. Drag to pull a thread home. The Synchronized BreathOne atmosphere. Hold to slow and breathe with the globe. The Shared LexiconMama, water, fire: one breath, many scripts. The Erasure of BordersScroll to peel the modern map down to a starlit Africa. The Mirror of AgesMany shades, one composite face. Unify the spectrum.

What every human does

Everybody SingsMusic was in all 315 societies the census read. All of them. The Same FaceBorn blind, never seen a face — and the same smile on winning. Two Hundred MillisecondsTen languages, five continents, one fifth of a second.