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 38
... Recent discoveries in the medieval city of Dmanisi , in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia , show that they left ... recently discovered chimpanzee- like apes Ardipithecus . But is this evidence sufficient to conclude that Africa was ...
... Recent discoveries in the medieval city of Dmanisi , in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia , show that they left ... recently discovered chimpanzee- like apes Ardipithecus . But is this evidence sufficient to conclude that Africa was ...
Page 49
... recent common ancestor . But since there was no variation detected , it was impossible to say when this person may have lived . On the face of it , they all could have had the same father - a Casanova of a man who had sown his oats all ...
... recent common ancestor . But since there was no variation detected , it was impossible to say when this person may have lived . On the face of it , they all could have had the same father - a Casanova of a man who had sown his oats all ...
Page 55
... recent , but remember that we're dealing with evolutionary time scales here . Apes first appeared in the fossil record around 23 million years ago a huge expanse of time , and difficult to envision . But if we compress it down to a year ...
... recent , but remember that we're dealing with evolutionary time scales here . Apes first appeared in the fossil record around 23 million years ago a huge expanse of time , and difficult to envision . But if we compress it down to a year ...
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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