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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... similar . Often they had identical sequences for ten , twenty , or even thirty amino acids in a row , and then there would be a difference between them . What was fascinating was that the more closely related the animals were , the more ...
... similar to that observed for the first appearance of agriculture : the genetic signal decreased regularly as you moved from south - east to north - west across Europe . The methods of analysis used in this study limited what the ...
... similar to each other . While we know nothing about our ancestors ' skin colour , hair type or other surface features , the evidence from bones suggests that our concept of race is actually a very recent phenomenon . It was probably the ...