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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... mutations that distinguish them from their parents . Mutations are random because they arise as copying mistakes during the process of cell division , with no particular rhyme or reason as to where those mistakes might occur our genomes ...
... mutation occurred approximately 35,000 years ago in central Asia . Today , M45 is found only in central Asians and ... mutations ) . The ' ancestral ' form the deepest split in the genealogy of Y - chromosomes from the central Asian ...
... mutations appear is much more sedate , perhaps twenty or thirty per generation . This is around 100,000 times lower than the mutation rate we see for repeats , which means that new mutations in ' regular ' sequences are much less common ...