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 46
Page 120
... thousands of samples that have been tested all trace their ancestry back to Africa . In short , there is no genetic evidence that Homo erectus made any contribution to the gene pool of modern east Asians . Rather , Dubois ' ape - man ...
... thousands of samples that have been tested all trace their ancestry back to Africa . In short , there is no genetic evidence that Homo erectus made any contribution to the gene pool of modern east Asians . Rather , Dubois ' ape - man ...
Page 133
... thousand years . It is likely that their sojourn on the steppes had honed their hunting skills , leading to innovations in ... thousands of years of Neanderthal biological adaptation - what had given them their short , stocky frames . As ...
... thousand years . It is likely that their sojourn on the steppes had honed their hunting skills , leading to innovations in ... thousands of years of Neanderthal biological adaptation - what had given them their short , stocky frames . As ...
Page 165
... thousands of miles away ? Again , there are competing hypotheses . The first , advanced by Childe , Gimbutas and others , is that the early steppe horsemen carried their language from central Asia into India when they invaded around ...
... thousands of miles away ? Again , there are competing hypotheses . The first , advanced by Childe , Gimbutas and others , is that the early steppe horsemen carried their language from central Asia into India when they invaded around ...
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