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
Results 1-3 of 24
Page 111
... steppe zone to which they had become so well adapted . The mountains and temperate forests of the Balkan peninsula would have seemed rather alien to early Upper Palaeolithic people , and the genetic data bears this out . Very few ...
... steppe zone to which they had become so well adapted . The mountains and temperate forests of the Balkan peninsula would have seemed rather alien to early Upper Palaeolithic people , and the genetic data bears this out . Very few ...
Page 133
... steppe hunters to enter . As we have seen , they soon took over , dominating the region within a few thousand years . It is likely that their sojourn on the steppes had honed their hunting skills , leading to innovations in technology ...
... steppe hunters to enter . As we have seen , they soon took over , dominating the region within a few thousand years . It is likely that their sojourn on the steppes had honed their hunting skills , leading to innovations in technology ...
Page 164
... steppes , dating from around 6,000 years ago , mark the earliest signs of a culture that can be identified as proto ... steppe horsemen would have been able to conquer Europe and impose their language upon its inhabitants . For this ...
... steppes , dating from around 6,000 years ago , mark the earliest signs of a culture that can be identified as proto ... steppe horsemen would have been able to conquer Europe and impose their language upon its inhabitants . For this ...
Other editions - View all
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