Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our AncestorsIn just the last few years an explosion of discoveries - driven by information from the human genome - has empowered researchers to address many long-standing questions about the deep human past. Nicholas Wade has drawn on the new findings to present the first portrait of a special and hitherto mysterious group of human ancestors - the ancestral human population that lived in Africa 50,000 years ago and from whom everyone in the world today is descended. The human line evolved slowly from African apes until, quite recently in the timescale of human history, it acquired a novel faculty, the gift of language. With this transformation, humans became more innovative and their societies more cohesive. People were at last able to burst out of the African homeland where the stronger Neanderthals had long confined them, and then to inhabit the rest of the world. |
Contents
GENETICS GENESIS | 1 |
FIRST WORDS | 35 |
EDEN | 51 |
EXODUS | 71 |
STASIS | 100 |
SETTLEMENT | 123 |
SOCIALITY | 139 |
RACE | 181 |
LANGUAGE | 202 |
HISTORY | 233 |
EVOLUTION | 264 |
Notes | 281 |
Acknowledgments | 297 |
About the Author 313 | |
Other editions - View all
Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors Nicholas Wade No preview available - 2007 |
Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors Nicholas Wade No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
adapted alleles ancestral human population ancient animals anthropologist apes archaeological archaeologists Ashkenazic Aurignacian behavior behaviorally modern biologists bonobos brain branch chimpanzees chimps chromosome climate cognitive communities continent culture descendants developed diseases dogs domesticated East Asia emerged Eurasia Europe European evidence evolutionary evolved favored females foraging FOXP2 genes genetic genetic drift geneticists glottochronology Gravettian Greenberg groups guage hair homeland Homo erectus human evolution human genome human societies hunter-gatherers Icelanders Indo-European Jefferson Jewish Journal of Human known Kung lactose tolerance language families Last Glacial Maximum left Africa linguists lived male microcephalin migration million years ago mitochondrial DNA modern humans mutations Natufians natural selection Neanderthals Neolithic Nicholas Wade northern origin presumably probably protein proto-Indo-European races recent region religion Richard settled skin skulls social southern species spread survive territory tion tree tribes University Press Upper Paleolithic warfare women words Y chromosome Yanomamo