The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa (Paperback)

None of these questions is easily resolved, as Oppenheimer stresses often. With earlier answers based on the imperfect fossil record, on which many fine careers have been built, offering new responses takes courage. In anthropology, the response had better have good evidence in support. His support is impressive, reaching back through time and space to our earliest origins in Africa. From there he demonstrates that our Eurocentric view of ourselves needs serious revision. Humanity reached Europe late in our migrations. European humanity didn't invent "art", agriculture didn't arise in the Fertile Crescent spreading to girdle the globe, and Native Americans likely settled the Western Hemisphere prior to the last great Ice Age.

Oppenheimer relies on two newly-developed tools in his analysis: mitochondrial DNA and mutations in the Y chromosome. Mitochondrial DNA [mtDNA], the marker handed down from mother to daughter, has already pointed to a common ancestor to us all. Living in Africa about 150 thousand years ago, she's been [regrettably] dubbed the Mitochondrial Eve. The author deplores this appellation, but accepts its nearly universal usage. The Y chromosome, passed on to sons, is a firmer marker for location, if less precise in time. He uses both to trace a new migration route for humanity. The route is along the southern shoreline from Africa, across India's triangular coastline to Southeast Asia and Australia. He reminds us that the Australian Aborigines have the longest uninterrupted heritage of all humans. Yet, he notes, they are the same as the rest of us in all important features.

The coastal route, guided by mountain ranges and ice incursions, resulted in some unexpected revelations about that European viewpoint. Instead of creeping around the eastern Mediterranean to populate Europe, these migrants, "beachcombers" in his word, entered from the Asian steppes to the east. Already inhabited by the Neandertals, this invasion ultimately displaced the indigenous population - a depressingly familiar story. Marshalling the research done over the past few years, including the genetics, the rise and fall of the seas due to ice trapping the water, and tying it to the available fossil evidence, Oppenheimer revises a century of theories. It's an exemplary summary of current research while pointing out the work remaining to be done.

To many, the most interesting chapter is the contentious field of "the Peopling of the Americas". It is here that Oppenheimer introduces some of the disputants. The issue of who emigrated to the Western Hemisphere is tightly meshed with when it occurred. The "Clovis point" stone tools, long considered the benchmark in palaeoanthropology, is sharply challenged by both fossil and genetic evidence. The genetic picture is made up of four basic branches traceable, according to the author, to Japan and eastern China. These people, he stresses, didn't flow into North America from there, however. Instead, they took up residence in a "temporary continent" - Beringia - that formed when the ice lowered sea levels.

Oppenheimer's knowledge of the research processes is clearly imparted to readers. He explains how the new science of phylogeography starts at a "twig of the molecular tree" and can trace back through time and place on a map. The map shows our wanderings, and he gives us the maps to illustrate them. He supplies diagrams of the molecular relationships acting as guides. To complete the picture, he also provides environmental charts showing how migrations were guided by changing climate. It's a vivid, complete picture, with few flaws or omissions. In fact, the only complaint i can offer about this book is the references, which are integrated in the Notes at the back of the book. To garner a list of his sources, you must read the Notes as closely as you do the main text. It's not a chore you should shun, but the cross-referencing is tedious. A tiny blemish, it detracts nothing from the book. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]