Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza was among the first to ask whether the genes of modern populations contain a historical record of the human species. Cavalli-Sforza and others have answered this question--anticipated by Darwin--with a decisive yes. "Genes, Peoples, and Languages "comprises five lectures th[...]
Historians relying on written records can tell us nothing about the 99.9 per cent of human evolution which preceded the invention of writing. It is the study of genetic variation, backed up by language and archaeology, which provides concrete evidence about the spread of farming, the movements of pe[...]