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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... uniquely human - but also makes us unique individuals . Our DNA carries , hidden in its string of four simple letters , a historical document stretching back to the origin of life and the first self - replicating molecules , through our ...
... unique individuals – unless we have a twin , no other person in the world has an identical pattern of genetic polymorphisms . This is the insight behind a DNA ' fingerprint ' , used to identify crim- inals . Applied to the Y ...
... unique case ? Absolutely not . Among African - Americans , as many as 30 per cent of Y - chromosome lineages appear to be Euro- pean in origin . The slave - trading era has left a distinct pattern in the DNA of people of African descent ...