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. |
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Page 33
... analysis in the papers , but more extensive recent studies of mitochondrial DNA have confirmed and extended the con- clusions of the original analysis . We all have an African great - great ... grandmother who lived approximately ...
... analysis in the papers , but more extensive recent studies of mitochondrial DNA have confirmed and extended the con- clusions of the original analysis . We all have an African great - great ... grandmother who lived approximately ...
Page 124
... analysis was almost always limited to mitochondrial DNA , present in huge numbers of copies in every cell - making it more likely that one copy would have survived the Russian roulette of molecular degradation over the centuries . It ...
... analysis was almost always limited to mitochondrial DNA , present in huge numbers of copies in every cell - making it more likely that one copy would have survived the Russian roulette of molecular degradation over the centuries . It ...
Page 153
... analysis of these markers led Cavalli - Sforza and his colleagues to conclude that there had been a mass migration of genes out of the Middle East , and the genetic pattern was very similar to that observed for the first appearance of ...
... analysis of these markers led Cavalli - Sforza and his colleagues to conclude that there had been a mass migration of genes out of the Middle East , and the genetic pattern was very similar to that observed for the first appearance of ...
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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