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 57
... Africa , and any attempt to classify people according to African and non - African type is meaningless . When most of us think of Africans , we tend to picture the typically Bantu features of central Africans and ( via the European ...
... Africa , and any attempt to classify people according to African and non - African type is meaningless . When most of us think of Africans , we tend to picture the typically Bantu features of central Africans and ( via the European ...
Page 70
... non - African branches are much closer to the top , and do not pre - date 60,000 years . Most of human evolution has been spent in Africa , so it makes sense that there is greater diversity there . Most of the branches on the tree are ...
... non - African branches are much closer to the top , and do not pre - date 60,000 years . Most of human evolution has been spent in Africa , so it makes sense that there is greater diversity there . Most of the branches on the tree are ...
Page 72
... non - African branches ( or lineages ) in the case of mitochondrial DNA , and more than 90 per cent in the case of the Y. In other words , the majority of non - Africans alive today have mtDNA and Y - chromosomes belonging to the more ...
... non - African branches ( or lineages ) in the case of mitochondrial DNA , and more than 90 per cent in the case of the Y. In other words , the majority of non - Africans alive today have mtDNA and Y - chromosomes belonging to the more ...
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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