The Human Journey
The fossil record places human origins in Africa, but science continues to search for details about the incredible journey that took Homo sapiens to the far reaches of the Earth. How did each of us end up where we are? Why do we have such a wide variety of colors and features?
The fossil record places human origins in Africa, but science continues to search for details about the incredible journey that took Homo sapiens to the far reaches of the Earth. How did each of us end up where we are? Why do we have such a wide variety of colors and features?
Such questions are even more remarkable in light of genetic evidence that we are all descended from a common African ancestor who lived only 140,000 years ago. Through the eons of time, the full story remains clearly written in our genes. When DNA is passed from one generation to the next, most of it is recombined by the processes that give each of us our individuality. But some parts of the DNA chain remain largely intact through the generations, altered only occasionally by random mutations, which become what are called genetic markers. The order in which these markers occur allows geneticists to trace our common evolutionary time line back many generations.
Different populations carry distinct genetic markers. Reed more
