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 1
... look at people around the world . Why do we look so different from each other , and how did we come to inhabit such far - flung places ? Herodotus , the fifth - century BC Greek historian , provided posterity with far more than a ...
... look at people around the world . Why do we look so different from each other , and how did we come to inhabit such far - flung places ? Herodotus , the fifth - century BC Greek historian , provided posterity with far more than a ...
Page 29
... look like there have been mutations when there haven't , and because of this it causes us to overestimate the time that has elapsed since the common ancestor . One of the insights that Wilson and several other geneticists had in the ...
... look like there have been mutations when there haven't , and because of this it causes us to overestimate the time that has elapsed since the common ancestor . One of the insights that Wilson and several other geneticists had in the ...
Page 187
... look at the model for statehood developed in nineteenth - century Europe . - Withering tongues When you visit France today , it is difficult not to be impressed by the people's love for their language . The Académie Française , official ...
... look at the model for statehood developed in nineteenth - century Europe . - Withering tongues When you visit France today , it is difficult not to be impressed by the people's love for their language . The Académie Française , official ...
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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