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Around 200,000 years ago, a man--identical to us in all important respects--lived in Africa. Every person alive today is descended from him. How did this real-life Adam wind up father of us all? What happened to the descendants of other men who lived at the same time? And why, if modern humans share a single prehistoric ancestor, do we come in so many sizes, shapes, and races?
Showing how the secrets about our ancestors are hidden in our genetic code, Spencer Wells reveals how developments in the cutting-edge science of population genetics have made it possible to create a family tree for the whole of humanity. We now know not only where our ancestors lived but who they fought, loved, and influenced.
Informed by this new science, The Journey of Man is replete with astonishing information. Wells tells us that we can trace our origins back to a single Adam and Eve, but that Eve came first by some 80,000 years. We hear how the male Y-chromosome has been used to trace the spread of humanity from Africa into Eurasia, why differing racial types emerged when mountain ranges split population groups, and that the San Bushmen of the Kalahari have some of the oldest genetic markers in the world. We learn, finally with absolute certainty, that Neanderthals are not our ancestors and that the entire genetic diversity of Native Americans can be accounted for by just ten individuals.
It is an enthralling, epic tour through the history and development of early humankind--as well as an accessible look at the analysis of human genetics that is giving us definitive answers to questions we have asked for centuries, questions now more compelling than ever.
- Sales Rank: #47528 in Books
- Published on: 2017-03-28
- Original language: English
- Dimensions: 8.40" h x .70" w x 5.40" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 240 pages
Amazon.com Review
Spencer Wells traces human evolution back to our very first ancestor in The Journey of Man. Along the way, he sums up the explosive effect of new techniques in genetics on the field of evolutionary biology and all available evidence from the fossil record. Wells's seemingly sexist title is purposeful: he argues that the Y chromosome gives us a unique opportunity to follow our migratory heritage back to a sort of Adam, just as earlier work in mitochondrial DNA allowed the identification of Eve, mother of all Homo sapiens. While his descriptions of the advances made by such luminary scientists as Richard Lewontin and Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza can be dry, Wells comes through with sparkling metaphors when it counts, as when he compares genetic drift to a bouillabaisse recipe handed down through a village's generations. Though finding our primal male is an exciting prospect, the real revolution Wells describes is racial. Or rather, nonracial, as he reiterates the scientific truth that our notions of what makes us different from each other are purely cultural, not based in biology. The case for an "out of Africa" scenario of human migration is solid in this book, though Wells makes it clear when he is hypothesizing anything controversial. Readers interested in a fairly technical, but not overwhelming, summary of the remarkable conclusions of 21st-century human evolutionary biology will find The Journey of Man a perfect primer. --Therese Littleton
From Publishers Weekly
In this surprisingly accessible book, British geneticist Wells sets out to answer long-standing anthropological questions of where humans came from, how we migrated and when we arrived in such places as Europe and North America. To trace the migration of human beings from our earliest homes in Africa to the farthest reaches of the globe, Wells calls on recent DNA research for support. Clues in the blood of present groups such as eastern Russia's Chukchi, as well as the biological remnants of long-extinct human clans, allow Wells to follow the Y chromosome as a relatively unaltered marker of human heritage. Eventually, working backward through time, he finds that the earliest common "ingredient" in males' genetic soup was found in a man Wells calls the "Eurasian Adam," who lived in Africa between 31,000 and 79,000 years ago. Each subsequent population, isolated from its fellows, gained new genetic markers, creating a map in time and space. Wells writes that the first modern humans "left Africa only 2,000 generations ago" and quickly fanned out across Asia, into Europe, and across the then-extant land bridge into the Americas. Using the same markers, he debunks the notion that Neanderthals were our ancestors, finds odd links between faraway peoples, and-most startlingly-discovers that all Native Americans can be traced to a group of perhaps a dozen people. By explaining his terminology and methods throughout the book, instead of in a chunk, Wells makes following the branches of the human tree seem easy. 44 color photos, 54 halftones and 3 maps.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
"The Journey of Man is a book that should be read, for undeniably the story Wells reveals will transform our understanding of ourselves."--Tim Flannery, New York Review of Books
"Spencer Wells chronicles the history of genetic population studies, starting with Darwin's puzzlement over the diversity of humanity he saw first-hand from the deck of the Beagle, and ending with the various attempts to classify human variation on the basis of different political and social agendas."--Rebecca Cann, Nature
"The Journey of Man is fascinating and oozes charm. . . . [It] is packed with important insights into our history and our relationships with each other. . . . Who needs literature when science is this much fun?"--Chris Lavers, Guardian
"The Journey of Man is the best account available of the story of human origins and dispersals."--Colin Renfrew, Times Higher Education Supplement
"Fortunately for the lay reader, Wells has a knack for clear descriptions and clever analogies to help explain the intricacies of the science involved. Both entertaining and enlightening."--Library Journal
"Wells does an excellent job of making complex scientific data accessible and weaves a tapestry of physical anthropology and archaeology as well as linguistics and, of course, genetics to piece together the rise of the agricultural society, the interrelations between far-flung languages, and the eventual settlement of humans into virtually every corner of the globe."--Elise Proulx, East Bay Express
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Great history of modern humans
By William Divale, Ph.D.
Great book and very well written. I am a professional cultural anthropologist who just retired after 42 years of teaching. I had not paid much attention to the new work on genetics done in physical anthropology. This new research changes our picture of modern human origins completely. Spencer Wells does a great job of bringing the findings of several disciplines together to make a very strong argument. We all come from Africa - that is well known - but all modern humans stem from the same African woman who lived 150,000 years ago. Our spread through-out the planet out of Africa began only 60,000 years ago. He shows that by following the coastal route out of Africa our human ancestors could move rapidly across the planet. The old view is that we evolved from Homo Erectus and then Neanderthal man, but it appears that we just wiped them out, although there was some interbreeding. If you find this review hard to believe, then read the book.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
A Wonderful Clarification for Those Who Really Want to Know The Basics of Human Proliferation Throughut Planet Earth !
By Bernard Z. Friedlander
This book is excellent in its field, and it would have gained its fifth star if the scientific foundations of genetics and genetic variability had been explained with a few more concessions to educated general readers who need help with the technical intricacies of genetic variation.
Except for that minor warning, Spencer Wells has done a very great service to those of us who seek a clearer understanding of the details of how our species came to occupy all of Earth, after our very high-risk emergence from Eastern Africa about 60,000 years ago.
The importance Wells attributes to Darwinian thinking about the application to homo sapiens of variability and selection to our emergence and proliferation is profound. Two key points stand out with great clarity: the very small populations of homo sapiens that survived the hazards that their varied groups encountered, before the development of agriculture, and the very high mortality that prevailed among those groups which faced the hazards of their journeys.
It seems ironic now, when our human expansion and "conquest" of Earth raises serious doubts about our species' capacity to continue to survive, that there was so long a period when it seems remarkable that homo sapiens survived at all.
Bernard Z. Friedlander, PhD, Madison, WI
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Pretty good story of Humanity
By mark seligman
This book is an interesting but not gripping recounting of the biology and ancestry of human beings as traced primarily through the Y chromosone that identifies paternal lineage. It is probably worth 3.5 stars, but I think that the rating system tends to overexpress the views of people who love a book and the people who hate it resulting in few mid range reviews.
The technical aspects of DNA analysis are presented in an easily understandable manner. One does not need a PhD in biology to get this book.
The story is told straigthforwardly maybe too straightforward; for instance a friend had his DNA run to discover a significant contribution of African genes mixed in with his Irish ones. It turns out that during the 8th century the Vikings actually brought Africans to Ireland. This book seems to gloss over some of these events in order to keep the story clearer. I suspect that some controversies in the field are muted a bit; every scientific field has controversies.
The story of Kennebec man seems a little out of date, and that did make me wonder if there were other things that might need some updates.
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