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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... Recent discoveries in the medieval city of Dmanisi , in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia , show that they left ... recently discovered chimpanzee- like apes Ardipithecus . But is this evidence sufficient to conclude that Africa was ...
... recent common ancestor . But since there was no variation detected , it was impossible to say when this person may have lived . On the face of it , they all could have had the same father a Casanova of a man who had sown his oats all ...
... recent , but remember that we're dealing with evolutionary time scales here . Apes first appeared in the fossil record around 23 million years ago a huge expanse of time , and difficult to envision . But if we compress it down to a year ...