About book The Journey Of Man: A Genetic Odyssey (2004)
Review @ www.LitLoversLane.comI have known of National Geographic’s genome project for years, so when I learned of this companion book, I bought it immediately. Working my way through the first few pages, I got a bit alarmed. Just between us, I all but royally flunked every science class I ever took from Grade 3 onward, and this book was giving me that familiar brain-dead feeling I always got in science class. Still, I was determined to slug my way through, and very soon, something almost miraculous happened. Spencer Wells was taking me back in time to the dawn of man using science, and I was hooked like a fish on bait. When I finished The Journey of Man, three overall impression stayed with me.If you are a history fanatic, like me, this book is a must-read. In a very methodical way, Spencer lays out the work of anthropological scientists before him, highlighting the important discoveries regarding man’s origins and way of life. Then, he lays out his own work using DNA samples of men the world over to determine where man began and how, when, and why the four corners of the earth became populated. His work takes the reader hurtling back through time to that first African man who father all humanity 60,000 years ago, showing us where all humans surely came from and how they lived. Then, in a clear methodical way, Spencer charts our journey out of Africa, making educated guesses on the possible reasons for the exodus, the means used, and the destinations. All the while, he employs DNA markers to link us, to distinguish us, and to chart each ethnic/racial group’s particular journey. The ride is simply fascinating.To be sure, the work is peppered with scientific data, which was sometimes off-putting for me. Still, Spencer uses many analogies to make the science more accessible to lay people. For instance, at one point, he explains how modern man’s looks changed from the looks of the first man by using a soup analogy. In the beginning, there is one soup recipe, and everyone makes it the same way. Then, a woman marries and moves away to her husband’s town. She cannot make soup the same way because some ingredients are unavailable, so the soup is slightly altered. Her sister also moves. She does have the ingredients for the original soup, but her husband is used to a certain spice, so she adds it. Thus, the soup changes through the generations, but there is still a link among the soups and back to the original soup. The same goes for man. This helpful explanation is just one of many the author uses to promote understanding, which I really appreciated. Also, the truth is that one can always do as I did when some of the scientific data got too tough or boring (both in school and this book)…skip it. :)The last impression I took away from the book doesn't really pertain to it per se, but to education. Somewhere while reading, it struck me that if the boring science I’d sat through in school had been linked to such fascinating real-life applications and implications, I and many more students might have pursued scientific careers. Okay, that’s a downright lie. NOTHING on God’s green earth could have lassoed me into science. Nonetheless, the U.S. needs scientists, and fewer and fewer students study it, so we need to find ways to engage and capture those students who have an aptitude for it. Spencer’s work and more works like it which allow children to see how science can lead them to ideas/topics that DO interest them is a piece of this puzzle. Developing science programs that show children what fascinating things science can show us (even if the process itself is not fascinating) should be our goal.In the end, I so thoroughly enjoyed this book and appreciated the mountain of work that went into it that it is definitely worth the highest rating possible.
This turned out to be the third volume of a "trilogy" of sorts. I had just read Last Ape Standing: The Seven-Million-Year Story of How and Why We Survived (2013) and Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors (2006). Naturally I was a little concerned that it might be largely redundant with all or parts of the other two, or that it might be dated, having been published in 2002.Happily it was only slightly redundant, taking different slants and emphasis on common topics. However, what Wells had to say with regard to the "Out of Africa" theory remains highly consistent with the other two more recent works. I particularly liked Wells' sections on the migrations of early North Americans from Asia.And in an early part of the book, when trying to give the reader a sense of what it must have been like for the first hominids to leave the jungles and forests, he uses second person point-of-view, which I love and have experimented with myself. YOU become the character and YOU experience the environment with all its dangers and changing characteristics. It was an all too brief section, but I loved it.After reading the book I accidentally discovered that Wells has been leading the The Genographic Project for National Geographic. This effort is a bit like crowd sourcing. Hundreds of thousands of people are submitting their DNA for genealogical research. They use both mitochondrial and Y-chromosone methods. The money you pay covers the cost of the analysis and also helps to fund the research and preserve ethinicities that are rapidly disappearing and being subsumed by the "global village." And of course, you get a fascinating report of how you came to be you and where your ancestors came from. A bit scary maybe.So, don't let the date of publication put you off. This is a great read.
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Wells tells a better story about human migration out of African in this book than he does in his Deep Ancestry (2006). In Journey, the primary focus is on the migration of the male line by tracing the YDNA. Wells groups the various lines by “M,” followed by a number, which stands for the relevant genetic marker that defines specific migration lines. The numerical designations fall into main groupings (I don’t believe he uses the term “haplogroup” in this book) that then have, sequentially, subgroups. Thus, for example, the M173 line in Europe and the M17 line in northern India came from the earlier M45 line in central Asia, which in turn comes from M168, “the Eurasian Adam” that was the first line out of Africa. Wells supplements this genetic-based information with blood and linguistic lines, which generally match up with what Wells finds with his various M groupings.Wells states that the reasons for genetic changes are mutation, natural selection and genetic drift. Does sexual selection also play a role? Wells states that modern man and the Neanderthals “represent a separate species.” The genetic data,” he says, “is incontrovertible….” I believe that evidence now suggests there was interbreeding and that many humans today carry 1-4% Neanderthal genes.
—Bob Nichols
The companion book to the documentary by Spencer Well goes into greater depth explaining DNA markers than is possible in the film. Available both in paper and hardback, the hard back has the added feature of Well’s “human family photo album,” photographs of the people he succeeded in tracing specific DNA markers to in their ancestral homelands from the San tribe to the Navajo. There are also fascinating discussions regarding “language extinction,” and the currently out-of-favor theory that there must have been a single root language from which all other languages evolved.[LC: GN281; Dewey: 599.93]
—Xin
Spencer Wells is an expert on genetics and its application toward tracing human migrations from the time we first journeyed out of Africa till we colonized the entire Earth. He brings to the task knowledge of his own research plus that of other geneticists. He couples this with the things anthropologists, linguists and other researchers can tell us to provide his readers the most accurate picture he can draw of where our ancestors came from, and how they got to the places they now inhabit. Perhaps the most amazing thing about his writing is that he manages to make such a complex study accessible to readers like me, who has no formal background as a historian, anthropologist or geneticists. It's not light reading, but if mankind's history and migrations interest you, it's a delight to read.
—James Hollomon
