The Migration of Man

Spencer Wells has been studying your oldest ancestors for more than 20 years. And he's coming to Dublin to tell you what he found.

Spencer is giving the Keynote Address at Genetic Genealogy Ireland - 3.30 pm, Sat 18th October 2014 at Back to Our Past at the RDS, Dublin.

The earliest humans originated in Africa, and eventually made their way out to the rest of the world. There were several migrations out of Africa over the millennia, but all of them died out. It is only the last exodus of humans that has survived, and we are the children of that exodus.

All human beings in existence today descend from one single man who lived in Africa about 330,000 years ago. So the genetic evidence tells us. And both archaeological and linguistic evidence supports the incredible story that is being revealed by our DNA. Spencer is one of the pioneers at the forefront of this genetic research into the incredible human journey.

TED Talk by Spencer Wells - the origins of human diversity

In his engrossing book and documentary "The Journey of Man", Spencer describes how humans migrated out of Africa, developing mutations in their DNA as they went. These mutations act as "markers" that allow us to track the route that they took. These mutations happen all the time, in all humans, and develop slowly over hundreds of years, serving as a "paper trail" that allows us to follow these markers back in time to their source.

The earliest groups of humans (known as  anatomically modern humans or homo sapiens sapiens) first emerged some 200,000 years ago. We find their present-day descendants among the San people of southern Africa. These people are key to the study of human migration and the development of human diversity. And because the various peoples in Africa are the oldest peoples on the earth, there is many times more genetic diversity within Africa than outside of it.

This documentary follows Spencer and his crew as they scour Africa, and the rest of the world, for indigenous people with deep roots in one place, asking for samples of DNA to test, in order to piece together our "big family" genetic tree. There are plenty of surprises along the way. It is particularly fascinating to see the diverse ways in which people and tribes react when Spencer returns with their DNA results and they discover what their DNA says about who they are and where they came from. 

Here is the entire documentary in thirteen parts.