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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... look at people around the world . Why do we look so different from each other , and how did we come to inhabit such far - flung places ? Herodotus , the fifth - century BC Greek historian , provided posterity with far more than a ...
... look like there have been mutations when there haven't , and because of this it causes us to overestimate the time that has elapsed since the common ancestor . - One of the insights that Wilson and several other geneticists had in the ...
... look . Rebecca Cann , as part of her PhD work in Wilson's laboratory , began to study the pattern of mtDNA variation in humans from around the world . The Berkeley group went to great lengths to collect samples of human placentas ( an ...