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 34
... ape only found in the Indo - Malaysian archipelago . This was because of their skull morphology ( lack of a massive , bony crest on the top and a flatter face than that found in other apes ) and the fact that they sometimes walked erect ...
... ape only found in the Indo - Malaysian archipelago . This was because of their skull morphology ( lack of a massive , bony crest on the top and a flatter face than that found in other apes ) and the fact that they sometimes walked erect ...
Page 35
... ape - man was clearly a long - extinct human ancestor - one with a cranial capacity much lower than our own , but still far above the range seen in apes . Although he got it wrong in so many ways , Dubois had got it right where it ...
... ape - man was clearly a long - extinct human ancestor - one with a cranial capacity much lower than our own , but still far above the range seen in apes . Although he got it wrong in so many ways , Dubois had got it right where it ...
Page 36
... apes - around 500 cubic centimetres . What was odd about the find was the size of the canine teeth - much smaller than those of apes and the location of the foramen magnum , which serves as a conduit for the spinal column in its ...
... apes - around 500 cubic centimetres . What was odd about the find was the size of the canine teeth - much smaller than those of apes and the location of the foramen magnum , which serves as a conduit for the spinal column in its ...
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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