Journey of Man

Gaspar A. Juico

11437553

The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey

There was a time where the human race were about to be wiped out from the face of the earth. The population of humans was around ten thousand people. Somehow, humans have successfully populated almost every part of the globe with an astonishing number of sixty billion people. With the help of DNA within in every human blood, researchers like Spencer Wells, have discovered how the human race have done what was considered almost impossible.

DNA is a code that consists of three billion bases which makes up the genes. The bases are known as the A, C, G, and T. Most people have almost identical genes but there will always be differences which are only similar to a particular group of people. Spencer Wells call the differences in genes markers which he used to trace back to where a particular group of people come from. With the process of globalization taking over, it is harder to find the markers. However, endogamy in remote tribes has helped Wells and other researchers discovered where people originated and how it populated the earth.

A remote group in Africa called the Sun Bushman possesses a marker that every person on the world right now has within the genes. That makes the Africans the first people to walk on the earth. During the time of Africans, bones were used as a spear which says that they were hunters. At that time also the sea in the African coast were retreating because of the ice age. There was no ice in Africa, just a tiny drop in the temperature. The temperature was not the reason why they left Africa. The animals headed to greener pastures where there is more water. And so the African hunters followed the animals. There were two waves of Africans that left and the journey of man began – the quantum leap.

The first wave: Africans traveled by foot from Africa to the coast line of Asia until they have reached Australia which is on the other side of the planet. The genetic markers...