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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... mean ? Genetically , it would mean that your son or daughter would have slightly less than two unrelated parents , since you would share some of your genome with your mate . This means that the multiplier in our ancestor calcu- lation ...
... means that men living in a particular area tend to share a recent common ancestor , providing us with clear ' fingerprints ' of particular geographic regions . What this means is that the Y gives us the clearest evidence for the ...
... means that each child would be born with over a million new mutations . Biology takes a dim view of this level of mutation , and it is likely that the child would die of a horrible inherited disease - if it were born at all . Thus , the ...