The Journey of Man: A Genetic OdysseyPenguin Adult, 2003 M05 29 - 288 pages Around 60,000 years ago, a man, identical to us in all important respects, walked the soil of Africa. Every man alive today is descended from him. How did he come to be father to all of us - a real-life Adam? And why do we come in such a huge variety of sizes, shapes, types and races if we all share a single prehistoric ancestor?
In this fascinating book, Spencer Wells shows how the truth about our ancestors is hidden in our genetic code, and reveals how developments in the cutting-edge science of population genetics have made it possible not just to discover where our ancestors lived (and who they may have fought, loved, learned from and influence) but to create a family tree for the whole of humanity. |
From inside the book
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... analysis was almost always limited to mitochondrial DNA , present in huge numbers of copies in every cell - making it more likely that one copy would have survived the Russian roulette of molecular degradation over the centuries . It ...
... analysis of these markers led Cavalli - Sforza and his colleagues to conclude that there had been a mass migration of genes out of the Middle East , and the genetic pattern was very similar to that observed for the first appearance of ...
... analysis as part of a television programme . The goal was to show , using genetic data , that all humans trace back to a recent African ancestor . Initially I was hesitant , since it would involve revealing personal genetic results in ...