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 84
... ancestry to him . He becomes the ' totemic ancestor ' of the group - the founding father - and everyone descended from him is by definition a member of the group . Other clans , denied the mysterious knowledge of animal behaviour and ...
... ancestry to him . He becomes the ' totemic ancestor ' of the group - the founding father - and everyone descended from him is by definition a member of the group . Other clans , denied the mysterious knowledge of animal behaviour and ...
Page 120
... ancestry to Africa within the past 50,000 years - because every man has our old friend M168 on his Y - chromosome . Everyone . This result is bad news to those looking for evidence of east Asian regional continuity , since it is ...
... ancestry to Africa within the past 50,000 years - because every man has our old friend M168 on his Y - chromosome . Everyone . This result is bad news to those looking for evidence of east Asian regional continuity , since it is ...
Page 193
... ancestry thought of themselves as white . One of the results of the 2000 census is that it became clear that America is far more of a melting pot than it may have imagined . The golfer Tiger Woods may be more indicative of the face of ...
... ancestry thought of themselves as white . One of the results of the 2000 census is that it became clear that America is far more of a melting pot than it may have imagined . The golfer Tiger Woods may be more indicative of the face 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