Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors
Wade reports on the efforts by historical linguists to reconstruct the lost tongues from which today's languages are derived, and on new hopes for tracing the tree of language deeper into the past and nearer to the first language ever spoken, the mother tongue of the ancestral human population. Drawing on new genetic findings, the author shows that human evolution, contrary to a wider-spread assumption, did not halt in the distant past but has continued in full force up until the present day. Recent evolutionary changes include the emergence of today's human races, the development of resistance to new diseases, and the acquisition of new cognitive powers. The human genome can be used not only to probe the deep past but also to serve as a powerful parallel source to contemporary historical records. The author shows how genetics sheds new light on the population history of Jews and Icelanders, the secrets of Genghis Khan and the dalliances of Thomas Jefferson. In interweaving many threads of evidence, Before the Dawn draws together a far-reaching new synthesis of knowledge about the human past, one that may arouse controversy because it applies the new evidence to long disputed topics such as the origins of race and the genetic basis of human nature.
