Cover of The Journey of Man: A Genetic OdysseyThe origin of human: where did we come from, is certainly one of the most important/enchanting questions of history. Recently I watched a series of documentary videos and one of them seemed to have unraveled this riddle, at least to a certain extent.It seems to me, that the "theory" of all people on this earth originated from Africa is not a foreign to most of us, but I did not know that up to date, scientists already have concrete evidences, such as DNA, to prove this "theory". Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, a documentary movie based on book with the same name (published in 2002. How behind I am!) written by Spencer Wells (an archeologist and geneticist), has advanced investigation on this subject. After his comprehensive researches Wells reached an absolutely certain conclusion with (DNA) evidences that we human, all came from Africa.
No wonder I have such fascination with Africa!
Thank Wells for the brilliant job. I am not a professional historian but I consider this finding a milestone in history study.
Of course, still, this discovery only reveals our physical origin, that much more mysterious question - where is our "spirit" (I am not satisfied with biological answer such as "brain function") come from - is still out there.
It's all quite fascinating.
ReplyDeleteThis is fascinataing news and I appreciate the fact you have shared it. I have been following this as well In 2008 National Geo had an artlce on the reasearch being done and it was published in Nature. Previous studies have looked only at a thousand or so genetic markers and compared them between three or four populations. The new studies examine hundreds of thousands of markers in dozens of populations. The researchers found less and less variation in the human genome the further out the went from Africa. Such a pattern fits the theory that the first modern humans settled the world in stepping-stone fashion after leaving Africa less than 100,000 years ago.
ReplyDeletehttp://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080220-dna-evolution.html
thanks Ana!
ReplyDeleteTT, thanks for sharing the info. if you have time, the video documentary is worth to watch.