The Journey of Man: A Genetic OdysseyAllen Lane, 2002 - 224 pages Around 60,000 years ago, a man walked the soil of Africa. Every person alive today is descended from him. How did he come to be father to all of us - a real life Adam? To find out, Spencer Wells embarked on a unique voyage of discovery, travelling the world and deciphering the genetic codes of people from the Sahara Desert to Siberia. He reveals how our DNA enables us to work out where our ancestors lived, (and who they may have fought, loved and learned from); to re-trace their footsteps from Africa to the far corners of the earth ; to understand how we evolved into such a huge variety of sizes, shapes and races - and, ultimately, to create a family tree for the whole of humanity. |
From inside the book
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Page 39
... Africa the oldest of all . - But does the placement of the root of our family tree in Africa mean that Coon was right , and Africans are frozen in some sort of ancestral evolutionary limbo ? Of course not - all of the branches on the ...
... Africa the oldest of all . - But does the placement of the root of our family tree in Africa mean that Coon was right , and Africans are frozen in some sort of ancestral evolutionary limbo ? Of course not - all of the branches on the ...
Page 57
... Africa , the only other place where click languages are spoken is in east Africa . The Hadza and Sandawe of Tanzania speak very divergent click languages , providing evidence for a once widespread linguistic family stretching from the ...
... Africa , the only other place where click languages are spoken is in east Africa . The Hadza and Sandawe of Tanzania speak very divergent click languages , providing evidence for a once widespread linguistic family stretching from the ...
Page 72
... Africa , and another branch remaining in Africa . Luckily , the tree is packed with dense foliage , defining a pattern of growth that traces the map of our journey . Intriguingly , on both the mitochondrial and Y branches , there is ...
... Africa , and another branch remaining in Africa . Luckily , the tree is packed with dense foliage , defining a pattern of growth that traces the map of our journey . Intriguingly , on both the mitochondrial and Y branches , there is ...
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Common terms and phrases
Aborigines actually Adam Africa agriculture analysis ancient animals anthropologists apes appear Asian Australia Cavalli-Sforza cent central Asia China chromosomes clan climate coastal colleagues common ancestor continent culture Darwin defined descendants developed earliest early human east Asia Eurasian Europe Europeans evolution evolutionary expansion extinct favour frequency genes genetic data genetic diversity genetic variation geneticists genome Hindu Kush hominid Homo erectus human diversity 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 Mediterranean Middle East Middle Eastern migration million mitochondrial DNA modern humans molecules mtDNA mutations Native Americans Neanderthals Neolithic non-African northern nucleotide Nyae origin past perhaps polymorphisms recent region route sample Siberia simply soup recipes south-east Asia southern species spoken spread steppe suggests thousands trace unique Upper Palaeolithic western Y-chromosome lineages