The Journey of Man: A Genetic OdysseyRandom House Publishing Group, 2012 M10 31 - 240 pages Around 60,000 years ago, a man—genetically identical to us—lived in Africa. Every person alive today is descended from him. How did this real-life Adam wind up as the father of us all? What happened to the descendants of other men who lived at the same time? And why, if modern humans share a single prehistoric ancestor, do we come in so many sizes, shapes, and races? Examining the hidden secrets of human evolution in our genetic code, Spencer Wells reveals how developments in the revolutionary science of population genetics have made it possible to create a family tree for the whole of humanity. Replete with marvelous anecdotes and remarkable information, from the truth about the real Adam and Eve to the way differing racial types emerged, The Journey of Man is an enthralling, epic tour through the history and development of early humankind. |
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Page xiv
... human groups? After all, we appear to be so different from one another. The answer to this question, first provided by my PhD adviser at Harvard, Richard Lewontin, gives us a clue about the journey—but it xiv Preface.
... human groups? After all, we appear to be so different from one another. The answer to this question, first provided by my PhD adviser at Harvard, Richard Lewontin, gives us a clue about the journey—but it xiv Preface.
Page 2
... living on small coral atolls separated by thousands of miles of open ocean. They appear to be somewhat similar to the Sumatrans encountered before but, as always seems to be the case, they are different. The biggest z The Journey of Man.
... living on small coral atolls separated by thousands of miles of open ocean. They appear to be somewhat similar to the Sumatrans encountered before but, as always seems to be the case, they are different. The biggest z The Journey of Man.
Page 9
... appearing early and remaining trapped in an evolutionary dead-end until the present. He asserts that the dominance of the Europeans is a natural consequence of their evolved genetic superiority, and even provides solace for those who ...
... appearing early and remaining trapped in an evolutionary dead-end until the present. He asserts that the dominance of the Europeans is a natural consequence of their evolved genetic superiority, and even provides solace for those who ...
Page 18
... appear to favour certain types of mutation based on what the effect might be. Rather, we are like Heath Robinson engineers, forced to make use of what we are given in the mutational lottery. The blood group variants discovered by ...
... appear to favour certain types of mutation based on what the effect might be. Rather, we are like Heath Robinson engineers, forced to make use of what we are given in the mutational lottery. The blood group variants discovered by ...
Page 22
... appear to behave like this — that is they are effectively free from selection, and thus they can be treated as evolutionarily 'neutral', free to drift around in frequency due entirely to sampling error. There has been great debate among ...
... appear to behave like this — that is they are effectively free from selection, and thus they can be treated as evolutionarily 'neutral', free to drift around in frequency due entirely to sampling error. There has been great debate among ...
Contents
1 | |
4Coasting Away | 61 |
Leaps and Bounds 8 | 81 |
Blood from a Stone 8The Importance of Culture 6 | 184 |
Acknowledgements | 197 |
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actually Adam Africa agriculture analysis ancient animals anthropologists apes appear archaeological Asian Australia Cavalli-Sforza cent central Asia China chromosomes clan classification climate coastal colleagues common ancestor continent culture Darwin defined descendants developed difficult earliest early human east Asia Eurasian Europe Europeans evidence evolution evolutionary expansion favour field find first frequency genes genetic data genetic diversity genetic variation geneticists genome hominid Homo erectus human genetic human migration human populations hunter-gatherers hunting ice age impala India Indo-European Indo-European languages infer ingredients journey known languages leap lifestyle linguistic living marker Middle East Middle Eastern migration mitochondrial DNA modern humans molecules mtDNA mutations Native Americans Neanderthals Neolithic northern nucleotide origin past perhaps polymorphisms population genetics recent region route sample scientific Siberia significant simply soup recipes south-east Asia southern species spoken spread steppe suggests thousands trace unique Upper Palaeolithic western Y-chromosome lineages