JOURNEY OF MAN  by SPENCER WELLS  

Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza = famous geneticist who collected DNA in blood samples from around the world.

 

A small band left Africa some 50 000 years ago.  They were the San people (Bushman).

Humans evolve from apes.

Cosmological calendar

Africa: direct descendents: why did they leave Africa .

Kalahari Desert , Namibia , San Bushman are our direct descendants.

Khoisan people

Eyes, High Cheek bones like Asians, medium brown skin that can go darker or lighter.  Faces look like a composite of everyone.

 

DNA           -  A C G T

Stretch to moon and back 3 000 times

46 bundles, chromosomes

Glitches = mutations are passed on.

Inherited mutations are known as markers.

Markers on the Y chromosome.

Man (papaya) pass on y chromosomes to sons.  Identical DNA of the fathers on the y chromosome.  The grandsons would have essentially the same DNA.  Sometimes there is a change in the DNA a mutation or a marker.  Sons will inherit this marker.  This is a badge of descent.  Occasionally, a second  marker occurs.  Now there are two markers passed along to the sons. 

 

The group that lost the clicks left Africa .  Language allows people to ask themselves “what if…”

Burst in creativity from the San.  Language sparks the birth of culture.

State of the art hunting technology for 50 000 years ago.

Reading tracks used the past to predict the future – to tell that an animal passed this way, and that to follow the tracks would lead to food.

 

Why did the San leave Africa ?

80 000 years ago in a cave in South Africa .  Stone tools.

People had not of thought of using bone.   Stone tools were in use for hundreds of thousands of  years before.  Why did they stop occupying the cave and vanish 50 000 years ago?

A drought occurred.  A drop in temp, the sea receded – all about 72 000 years ago.  The sea receded to about 40 kms away.  The cave became an inland sight instead of a coastal cave.

Ice cores, marine cores (forams = foraminifera:  little creatures looking like little grains of sand, calcium carbonate can measure the isotopes).  They reveal that the ice caps were expanding: an Ice Age.

Pastureland became desert and people needed to look for new places to find food.  The lifeline: a small band left Africa .  They first went to

Australia .

 

 

AUSTRALIA

 

How did they get there?  Why is there no evidence of their journey?

There are no apes in Australia , therefore humans must have migrated to Australia .

Also, the last time Australia was attached to the other land forms was over 100 000 years ago.

The blowing sands of Mungo (once a lake was found there) reveal artifacts.  Fish bones found in a fire 40 000 years ago.  Seems like there may have been 200 people living there.  The red layers of the sand are over 100 000 years ago, long before human habitation.

Oldest remains are dated to 40 000 to 45 000 years ago.

 

Aborigines: famous for oral history.  They have song lines.

Aborigines believe that they always came from Australia .

Rock paintings in Queensland do not show evidence of a journey.  One of the Aborigines does not believe he comes from Africa .  He “knows” that the Aborigines are from Australia .  He believes that the Africans came from the Aborigines. 

Africans have no trace of Aboriginal markers in their blood, while Aborigines do have African markers in their blood.

Theory: The Africans followed a coastal route on the edge of the ice field through India and into Australia .  Later, the ice left hiding the land route taken.

 

 

INDIA

 

Naderai in Southern India .  Looking for the genetic marker found in the Aborigines that show the Aborigines travelled through India on their way to Australia . 

Spencer Wells tests the blood of many in Southern India . 

Chromosomes are chopped up and reordered by genetic shuffling on the X chromosome.  But this does not happen on the Y chromosome.  Girls get two mixed chromosomes (X), males get one X (mixed) and one Y (not mixed).

Sequencing machine: Molecular sieve : separates based on size.  Sequence is thus determined A C G or T

Spencer is looking for one change in billions, a misprint in just one letter.

It occurred around 2 000 generations ago. (40 000 years ago).

There was no archeological evidence in India of humans till 35 000 years ago.  But the DNA is pointing to 50 000 years ago.  The route was a coastal one.  There was still 150 miles of open ocean.  How did they cross it?

By accident of design, they made it by asking “what if…”

This migration accounts for 10% of the world’s population.

 

The second wave becomes Europeans, Native North Americans, Asians.

 

THIS GROUP WENT TO THE

 

MIDDLE EAST

 

There was no ice in Africa , but there was a drought.  The animals leave and go into the Middle East . 

 

One branch went back down into INDIA

Another second wave went to CHINA .

One wave went to the NORTH and another to the SOUTH.

There were no people in Europe at this time while the Asians were populating their area.

It took 10 000 to get to Europe from the Middle East .

Southern France – artists – Pashmira.  Cave Art.

Cromagnon was a new human roaming in the area.  Where did Cromagnon, a European, come from.  He came from the Ice Age.  They toughened up along the way.  Bears even lived in the cave where people were drawing art.

Hunter, speed strength and wit, pre-meditated killer, fairly tall person, more than 6 feet tall.  Cromagnon arrived with African body proportions. 

Naked skin sweats to keep cool.  Skin was dark, full of melanin.  Skin was lightening because the skin needed vitamin D3.  Populations that were not coastal populations had to lighten up.  On the coast if you ate fish, you could stay a little darker.  In Europe , being covered with skins, the skin is less exposed.  The skin that is exposed has to do more work to synthesise Vitamin D.  The nose, height and hair changed.

 

Why 10 000 years from the Middle East .   They did not go directly to Europe .  They went to KIRGUISTAN

 

KIRGUISTAN

 

The markers found here are the same as those found in males in Europe .  So before going to Europe , these people went to KIRGUISTAN.  They followed the animals who went along the grasslands to the central Asian country.  Same markers in North and South America .  Central Asia was the nursery of Mankind, Africa was the cradle of Mankind.

Nyazov = holds the marker and is the link to all Europeans, North and South Americans, Asians, Russians, and some went back into India . 

 

 

Ice Age 20 000 years ago was at its peak, and that’s when Nyazov’s relatives headed to Eastern Russia .  Spencer goes to the Chukchi in Eastern Russia .  They live 400 miles inside the Artic Circle and temperatures can hit 100 degrees below zero.  Every house is built on stilts to protect the foundation from being ruined. 

 

CHUKCHI

 

These people populated the Americas .  The Native Indians and Inuit come from these people.  Average height is 5” 6’ or so.

Bergman’s and Allens rules.  Length of appendages are reduced.  Shorter and rounder trunk.  Little furnaces for preserving their own body heat.  They must stay physically active.  They have a heard of 1 000 reindeer. There are no veggies.  These people live on the reindeer.  Temp is minus 40 and dropping one degree every 10 minutes.  Liquid water does not seem to exist.  This is a good look at what an Ice Age looked like.  Yet, the Chukchi show how people can survive an Ice Age.  Every part of the animal is used for sustenance (food).  Eat with fingers, your tongue will stick to a knife of fork.

Yaranga – a Chukchi dwelling made of skins.  Inside is another tent.  Both are made of reindeer tent.  No sleeping bag, no blankets, just a candle.   Yaranga was warm at minus 60 degrees outside. 

Moving, always on the move.  Tents are very portable.  The Chukchi’s ancestors followed the reindeer.  They could go no further.  They also follow the herd.  This is a good lesson in how little we need to get by.

 

BEARING STRAIGHT

 

 About 15 000 years ago, at the height of the last Ice Age, the ancestors of the Chukchi left Russia and went over to North America .  The land route was called Beringia connected the Russian far east to Alaska .  The reindeer went over this land crossing, and the Chukchi followed.  The water level dropped the distance of a 40 story building.  The walked down a corridor that offered easy passage between two major ice floes. 

 

NAVAJO

 

Canyon Duché  (holy site for the Navajo)

Creation and migration narrative “At the time of the beginning.”  They believe that they were birthed into this place.  They came up from the earth.

 

1.     Australia

2.     India

3.     Middle East

4.     Kirguistan ( Southern Russia )

5.     India again,

6.     China ,

7.     Europe

8.     North Ameirca

9.     South America