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 34
... remains of a malformed modern human , but it was later found to be a widespread and distinct species of ancestral hominid , christened Neanderthal Man after the site of its discovery . This was the first scientific recognition of a ...
... remains of a malformed modern human , but it was later found to be a widespread and distinct species of ancestral hominid , christened Neanderthal Man after the site of its discovery . This was the first scientific recognition of a ...
Page 65
... remains . The problem is that beyond about 40,000 years ago , the estimates of C - 14 : C - 12 ratios are not terribly accurate , since most of the C - 14 has already decayed . After 5,700 years , only half of the C - 14 originally ...
... remains . The problem is that beyond about 40,000 years ago , the estimates of C - 14 : C - 12 ratios are not terribly accurate , since most of the C - 14 has already decayed . After 5,700 years , only half of the C - 14 originally ...
Page 148
... remains , dating from the past 4,000 years , were most carefully scrutinized , but during the course of their work the archaeologists uncovered evidence for earlier occupation . It was only with the focused work of Dame Kathleen Kenyon ...
... remains , dating from the past 4,000 years , were most carefully scrutinized , but during the course of their work the archaeologists uncovered evidence for earlier occupation . It was only with the focused work of Dame Kathleen Kenyon ...
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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