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 xiv
... reason most of the details of our hominid ancestors have been left out . This book was originally conceived as part of a documentary film project of the same name . It has since taken on a life of its own , and it stands alone as a ...
... reason most of the details of our hominid ancestors have been left out . This book was originally conceived as part of a documentary film project of the same name . It has since taken on a life of its own , and it stands alone as a ...
Page 28
... reason we have two copies of each chromosome is more compli- cated , but it comes down to sex . When a sperm fertilizes an egg , one of the main things that happens is that part of the father's genome and part of the mother's genome ...
... reason we have two copies of each chromosome is more compli- cated , but it comes down to sex . When a sperm fertilizes an egg , one of the main things that happens is that part of the father's genome and part of the mother's genome ...
Page 43
... reason for this is that , unlike mtDNA , a molecule roughly 16,000 nucleotide units long , the Y is huge - around 50 million nucleotides . It therefore has many , many sites at which mutations may have occurred in the past . As we saw ...
... reason for this is that , unlike mtDNA , a molecule roughly 16,000 nucleotide units long , the Y is huge - around 50 million nucleotides . It therefore has many , many sites at which mutations may have occurred in the past . As we saw ...
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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