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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... modern humans , as opposed to Homo erectus or Neanderthals , who remained trapped in a Middle Palaeolithic time - warp . The details of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition will be examined in the next chapter , but for the ...
... modern humans and their Upper Palaeolithic toolkits into the Middle East around 45,000 years ago . - Modern humans had been present in the Levant ( the eastern region of the Mediterranean ) since at least 110,000 years ago , but the ...
... modern human mtDNA , but it didn't belong to an ape either . Rather , it came from a hominid that last shared a common ancestor with modern humans around 500,000 years ago . This date was consistent with what was predicted by ...