Genetics and Human Evolution
The Evolution of Man, Octavio Ocampo, wikiart.org
“The extraordinary fact that emerges from ancient DNA is that just five thousand years ago, the people who are now the primary ancestors of all extant northern Europeans had not yet arrived.”
—David Reich, Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past
Scientific Breakthroughs
Recent technological breakthroughs in genomic analysis, combined with archeological, paleoanthropological, linguistic and other information, now give us an unparalleled opportunity to trace humanity’s evolution and movement in time – how we developed, differentiated and interbred many times, and arrived at our present planet-wide population.
We Were Not Alone Until Recently
“The real way to understand human genetics and migration is to time travel, and that is what ancient DNA has enabled us to do.” -Professor Dan Bradley, Trinity College, Dublin.
Tracking Human Movement Across the Globe
Prior to our ability to analyze aDNA, we could only interpret ancient history from art and artefacts. This led anthropologists and historians to assume that the spread of ideas was the primary cause of change. Now we know that the primary cause was often due not to influence but to interbreeding.
Biological Traits and the Fiction of Race
Ancient DNA has enabled scientists to understand how complex biological traits evolve over time. They can follow the complex evolution of skin pigmentation and traits such as blue eyes and height.
In the series: Discovering Our Distant Ancestors
- Our Nearest Relatives: Bonobos and Chimpanzees
- Our Hominid Predecessors
- She Has Her Mother's Laugh
- Neanderthal Man – In Search of Lost Genomes
- The Evolution of Human Morality: The Age of Empathy and The Bonobo and the Atheist
- The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals
- Before the Dawn: New details of human evolution revealed