Mapping Human History : Unravelling the Mystery of Adam and Eve

150,000 years of human existence have passed, and yet what do we really know about our history before the advent of writing? Some of the most momentous events - including our origins, our migrations across the globe, and our acquisition of language - were lost in the darkness of ’prehistory’. But at last geneticists and other scientists are piecing together a history - the true story of Adam and Eve. Mapping Human History is nothing less than a ’history of prehistory’. Steve Olson travelled through four continents to discover the development of humans and our expansion throughout the planet. He describes, for example, new thinking about how centres of agriculture sprang up among disparate foraging societies at roughly the same time. He tells why most of us can claim Julius Caesar and Confucius among our forebears. He pinpoints why the ways in which the story of the Jewish people jibes with, and diverges from, biblical accounts. And using very recent genetic findings, he explodes the myth that human races are a biological reality. Mapping Human History is a comprehensive guide to the evolution of humans. The book is carefully chaptered into specific sections which focus on explaining both the geographical causes of human evolution (for example, isolation); the nature of which human characteristics are transferred to future generations by genetic processes; and the effects this has had on the distribution of humans across the planet. Olson accumulates a rich wealth of evidence such that the book covers a wide epoch of time and is valuable reading for many different cultures and ethnicities. It succeeds also in terms of providing complex and perhaps hitherto unknown ideas for readers about ideas such as 'mitochondrial Eve' and the Kalahari bushmen, whilst being easily accessible for anyone with just a framework knowledge of the barebones of evolution or genetics. It is a thoroughly enjoyable read. A magnificent account of human formation and history based on new discoveries through our genetic make-up