The Journey of Man: A Genetic OdysseyPenguin Adult, 2003 M05 29 - 224 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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... major scholars such as Louis Agassiz , a Swiss transplant to America who founded Harvard University's Museum of Natural History . The catastrophists believed that the earth went through long periods of stasis when nothing much happened ...
... major discoveries , including finding a reasonable expla- nation for why coral atolls are round ( it has to do with receding volcanoes ) and deciding that the Tahitians were very attractive people indeed . The most important - his ...
... major omen . The only problem is that the albatross , uniquely among birds , spends the major- ity of its life out at sea . Some birds have actually spent more than two years wandering around , often sleeping in flight as they glide ...