SPENCER WELLS

Hace más o menos 60.000 años, un hombre, idéntico a nosotros desde todos los puntos de vista importantes, recorrió a pie el territorio de África. Todos los hombres vivos hoy en día descienden de él. ¿Como es que resulta ser el padre de todos nosotros, este autentico Adan? ¿Que le sucedio a los descendientes de los otros "Adanes"? ¿Y por que hemos llegado a tamaña variedad de formas, tallas, tipos y razas si todos compartimos un solo ancestro prehistorico? El viaje del hombre esta lleno de asombrosa informacion: que existieron unos autenticos Adan y Eva, pero que Eva llego primero, hace 80.000 años aproximadamente; que los bosquimanos del desierto del Kalahari poseen algunos de los registros geneticos mas antiguos del mundo; como el cromosoma masculino Y se ha usado para rastrear con precision la diseminacion de la humanidad desde Africa hacia Eurasia; como las cordilleras de montañas materialmente separaron las poblaciones a la mitad, y resultaron de ello distintos tipos raciales; que se ha demostrado de una vez por todas que los Neanderthales no son ancestros nuestros, sino mas bien un callejon son salida de la evolucion; que toda la diversidad genetica de los indigenas americanos puede explicarse acaso con diez individuos.

Around 60,000 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.

La ciencia nos dice que todos estamos emparentados. Somos una vasta familia que comparte un ancestro común que vivió en África hace 60.000 años. Sin embargo, aún quedan muchas dudas que resolver respecto a como el Homo sapiens se desplazo desde su Rift valley natal hasta los confi nes de la Tierra. Y aunque disciplinas tradicionales como la arqueologia o la paleontologia nos ofrecen pruebas tangibles, hoy en dia la genetica nos aporta las mejores pistas para hacer grandes descubrimientos. Nuestro ADN transporta una cronica completa de las migraciones de nuestra especie, y el objetivo del Proyecto Genographic es nada menos que descifrar este codigo biologico y desentrañar sus secretos creando y analizando la coleccion mas extensa del mundo de muestras geneticas. En Nuestros antepasados, Spencer Wells nos cuenta con detalle todo lo que podemos aprender de la genetica, utilizando casos concretos de su estudio para mostrar como los perfi les de ADN pueden ayudarnos a resolver preguntas como estas: ¿Como hemos llegado hasta aqui?, ¿cuando llegamos? y ¿por que la raza humana tiene tanta diversidad de colores y rasgos diferenciales? Wells traduce conceptos complicados a un lenguaje accesible documentado con una gran cantidad de ejemplos reales, analogias, diagramas e ilustraciones detalladas.

In The Journey of Man, renowned geneticist and anthropologist Spencer Wells traced human evolution back to our earliest ancestors, creating a remarkable and readable map of our distant past. Now, in his thrilling and thoughtful new book, he examines our cultural inheritance in order to find the turning point that led us to the path we are on today, one he believes we must veer from in order to survive.Pandoras Seed takes us on a powerful and provocative globe-trotting tour of human history, back to a seminal event roughly 10,000 years ago, when our species made a radical shift in its way of life: we became farmers rather than hunter-gatherers, setting in motion a momentous chain of events that could not have been foreseen at the time.Although this decision to control our own food supply is what propelled us into the modern world, Wells demonstrates with the latest genetic and anthropological data that such a dramatic shift in lifestyle had a downside that were only beginning to recognize. Growing grain crops ultimately made the planet more crowded, sedentary and unhealthy. The expanding population and the need to apportion limiting resources such as water created hierarchies and inequalities. The desire to control - and no longer cooperate with - nature altered the concept of religion, making deities fewer and more influential, foreshadowing todays fanaticisms. The proximity of humans and animals bred diseases that metastasized over time. Freedom of movement and choice were replaced by a pressure to work that is the forebear of anxiety and depression millions feel today. Wells then offers a hopeful prescription for altering a life to which we were always ill-suited, changing priorities and self-destructive appetites before its too late.A riveting and accessible scientific detective story, Pandoras Seed is an eye-opening book for anyone fascinated by the past and concerned about the future.

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.