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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... genetics. Wells has himself contributed to some of the work dis'cussed, and so writes with authority about the molecular genetics, and he succeeds well in establishing the broader intellectual context in which the work is situated, so ...
... genetics. Wells has himself contributed to some of the work dis'cussed, and so writes with authority about the molecular genetics, and he succeeds well in establishing the broader intellectual context in which the work is situated, so ...
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... genetics of human populations in Central Asia, which he continued after moving to Oxford University in 1999. After heading the population genetics research group at Oxford's Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, he served briefly as ...
... genetics of human populations in Central Asia, which he continued after moving to Oxford University in 1999. After heading the population genetics research group at Oxford's Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, he served briefly as ...
Page iv
... genetics. 3. Human population genetics. I. Title. GN28LW44 2004 599.93'8—dc22 2003066679 Random House website address: www.atrandom.com Printed in the United States of America 20l918 l716l5 I413 I211 To my wife, Trendell, and our ...
... genetics. 3. Human population genetics. I. Title. GN28LW44 2004 599.93'8—dc22 2003066679 Random House website address: www.atrandom.com Printed in the United States of America 20l918 l716l5 I413 I211 To my wife, Trendell, and our ...
Page xiii
... argument pursued throughout is that genetics provides us with a map of our wanderings and gives us a rough idea of the dates —- and it is up to us to reconcile this data with the archaeological and climatological record in order Preface.
... argument pursued throughout is that genetics provides us with a map of our wanderings and gives us a rough idea of the dates —- and it is up to us to reconcile this data with the archaeological and climatological record in order Preface.
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... geneticist with a passion for history and a talent for mathematics, which provided us with a time machine capable of ... Genetics, at least the branch of it that informs the subject of human origins and migrations, is necessarily less ...
... geneticist with a passion for history and a talent for mathematics, which provided us with a time machine capable of ... Genetics, at least the branch of it that informs the subject of human origins and migrations, is necessarily less ...
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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Common terms and phrases
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