Article/Video Response

The Journey of Man video and the Traces of a Distant Past have both taught me many things I did not know. I learned that the earliest humans existed 200,000 years ago in Africa. All people that are alive or have ever lived have been related, and are descendants of the first “mitochondrial eve.” I also learned the migratory path of Africans. This migration began 50,000 years ago, first going from Africa to Australia, and eventually spreading out into every corner of the World, the last place that was reached being South America. One of the major questions that was being asked by many geneticists and researchers is how they originally got from Africa to Australia, by land or by sea. Most of the research I have done supports the slow movement to Australia along the coast of Asia. Another common question was why they moved, curiosity because of their large, intelligent brains, or simply the need for more food and more resources. Back to the original migration, I knew nothing about how DNA could tell us this, but I learned it was through looking at mutations. These mutations act as a guide showing that people from all over the world, have the mutation of the Sanbushman. When a small group moved to Australia, their DNA continued to mutate and have markers, which are not currently present in Africans. This pattern continues and makes the journey of man very clear through DNA, even without the supporting fossil evidence. I also learned that when geneticists are testing DNA, they typically use male DNA, because male transmitted DNA has tens of millions of nucleotides, while mitochondrial only has 16,000 nucleotides. Another aspect of early human life that was mentioned in both my article and in the movie was the humans’ interaction with Neanderthals. It discussed how little to no inbreeding took place, which I found very interesting.  The movie and the articles I have read were all very interesting, and taught me a lot about human evolution in particular, and also connected back to general evolution about mutations and adaptions in genes.