The Genealogy of Mankind: The Thrilling Story of Human History Extracted from DNA

By learning to “read” DNA not only of modern Homo sapiens, but also of our distant ancestors, we gained the ability to travel through time. In this book, guided by geneticist-anthropologist Eveline Eyer, the reader will follow the same paths our vanished relatives—Neanderthals, Denisovans, and the mysterious steppe people who laid the foundation for all Indo-European languages—took; trace the trail of Bukharan Jews, the armies of Genghis Khan, and thousands of “royal daughters” sent by Louis XIV to populate New France; board a ship that takes African slaves away from their homeland. The author draws on the latest scientific research and shares her own field observations in a scientific area that yesterday seemed like fantasy. This science—genetics—answers the question: how did a human become a human? How, in just a few million years, a small group of wanderers across the savanna turned into the dominant species on the planet.