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 19
... samples to reflect a biased view of the population from which they are drawn . If you flip a coin 1,000 times , you expect ... sample for the next generation is created anew in the present generation ( as is the case for living organisms ) ...
... samples to reflect a biased view of the population from which they are drawn . If you flip a coin 1,000 times , you expect ... sample for the next generation is created anew in the present generation ( as is the case for living organisms ) ...
Page 64
... sample . It is possible to do this because almost all atoms come in more than one ' flavour ' , depending on how many subatomic building blocks ( particles called neutrons ) they have . Through the alchemy of particle physics , the ...
... sample . It is possible to do this because almost all atoms come in more than one ' flavour ' , depending on how many subatomic building blocks ( particles called neutrons ) they have . Through the alchemy of particle physics , the ...
Page 65
... sample to decay around 5,700 years . Since carbon is used to build organic molecules , like those found in plant and animal tissues , the method is fantastic for dating human remains . The problem is that beyond about 40,000 years ago ...
... sample to decay around 5,700 years . Since carbon is used to build organic molecules , like those found in plant and animal tissues , the method is fantastic for dating human remains . The problem is that beyond about 40,000 years ago ...
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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