*David Reich* # Progressive Summary # Definitions # Chapter Notes ## Part One – The Deep History of Our Species ### Chapter 1 - How the Genome Explains Who We Are In 1987, Allan Wilson and his colleagues figured out how to use mitochondrial DNA to reconstruct a family tree of maternal relationships. They estimated that Mitochondria Eve, the most recent African ancestor of all the human branches, lived sometime around 160,000 years ago. This refuted the multiregional hypothesis, which held that present-day humans evolved in parallel across Africa and Eurasia from an early dispersal of *Homo erectus* that occurred at least 1.8 million years ago. Some anthropologists, such as Richard Klein and Svante Pääbo, became excited by the prospect of powerful explanations of human behaviour that could be derived from DNA analysis. Archaeological evidence suggests that our capacities for art and tool-making started evolving rapidly around 50,000 years ago. Could changes in our DNA provide a deeper explanation of this? In 2002, Pääbo and his colleagues found that mutations in the FOXP2 gene (which is crucial for complex language) could be potential explanatory candidates. Between 2010 and 2013, Pääbo published the results of his efforts to sequence the genome of archaic humans. He hopes to compare the genes of modern humans with archaic ones, in order to identify differences that could explain modern humans' behaviour. Reich considers this the "Manhattan project of human evolutionary biology". Insights come from "years of hand-to-hand combat with life's secrets by graduate students or postdoctural scientists making engineered mice or fish." Reich is sceptical of its success though. Instead of behaviour, he thinks that DNA analysis can provide powerful perspectives about history. # Quotes # References