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 28
... chromosomes - it is relatively easy to break both chromosomes in the middle and reattach them to their partners , forming new , chimeric chromosomes in the process . The reason why this occurs , as with the mixing of Mum's and Dad's DNA ...
... chromosomes - it is relatively easy to break both chromosomes in the middle and reattach them to their partners , forming new , chimeric chromosomes in the process . The reason why this occurs , as with the mixing of Mum's and Dad's DNA ...
Page 42
... chromosomes - are exceptions to the 50 : 50 sexual mixing rule . The double layout of our genomes , with two copies of each chromosome , fails us when we get to these chromosomes . This is because of the way in which sex is determined ...
... chromosomes - are exceptions to the 50 : 50 sexual mixing rule . The double layout of our genomes , with two copies of each chromosome , fails us when we get to these chromosomes . This is because of the way in which sex is determined ...
Page 118
... chromosomes marked with M45 - they would have had unmarked Eurasian M9 Y - chromosomes . This is because new markers do not immediately increase in frequency to the point where all other markers - such as the ancestral M9 lineage - are ...
... chromosomes marked with M45 - they would have had unmarked Eurasian M9 Y - chromosomes . This is because new markers do not immediately increase in frequency to the point where all other markers - such as the ancestral M9 lineage - are ...
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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