The Seven Daughters of Eve

Sinopsis

Aún no disponible en español — se muestra la versión en inglés.

The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry is a 2001 semi-fictional book by Bryan Sykes that presents the science of human origin in Africa and their dispersion to a general audience. Sykes explains the principles of genetics and human evolution, the particularities of mitochondrial DNA, and analyses of ancient DNA to genetically link modern humans to prehistoric ancestors. Following the developments of mitochondrial genetics, Sykes traces back human migrations, discusses the "out of Africa theory" and casts serious doubt upon Thor Heyerdahl's theory of the Peruvian origin of the Polynesians, which opposed the theory of their origin in Indonesia. He also describes the use of mitochondrial DNA in identifying the remains of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, and in assessing the genetic makeup of modern Europe. The title of the book comes from one of the principal achievements of mitochondrial genetics, which is the classification of all modern Europeans into seven groups, the mitochondrial haplogroups. Each haplogroup is defined by a set of characteristic mutations on the mitochondrial genome, and can be traced along a person's maternal line to a specific prehistoric woman. Sykes refers to these women as "clan mothers", though these women did not all live concurrently. All these women in turn shared a common maternal ancestor, the Mitochondrial Eve. The last third of the book is spent on a series of fictional narratives, written by Sykes, describing his creative guesses about the lives of each of these seven "clan mothers". This latter part generally met with mixed reviews in comparison with the first part.

Licencia del texto: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fuente

Detalles

Tipo

Libro

Estreno

1 de julio de 2001

Géneros

historical fiction, essay

Creado por

Bryan Sykes

Páginas

320