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National Geographic Society's Genographic Project

The point of the Genographic Project is to answer the question of how the human population came to be. The three components of the project were gathering and analyzing data from indigineous peoples around the globe, inviting the general public to participate, and using a portion of the proceeds from the Geno 2.0 Kit sales to go to the Genographic Legacy Fund in order to further research. In order to trace back our lineage Dr. Spencer Wells along with a team of scientists traced back a common marker in our DNA all the way back to indigenous peoples living in Africa, also known as the birthplace of the human race. Only men were tested because they have the Y chromosome, which doesn't get rearranged so it is easier to trace back the genetic marker. By traveling the world researching multiple areas of the world, Dr. Wells was able to trace the human genome all the way from the first humans to todays' human population.

Wells than travelled to Southeast Asia in what is now known as Indonesia. He visited a man there who had pure blood. This one man had blood that he was able to have traced back to the first man in Asia.

National Geographic Society's Genographic Project would not have been possible without information from the Discovery of DNA, The Human Genome Project, and DNA fingerprinting. The discovery of DNA allowed for scientists to be able to discover these markers and even begin to track how people are related. The Human Genome project helped because they provided further information into mapping the world's genes. DNA fingerprinting allows people tohave their DNA mapped in order to determine the peices and parts of it.

Dr. Wells went to the baren land known as Beringia to visit the Chukchi people. The Chukchi people are nomadic people who survived the Ice Age and they are also the first people to survive in such freezing temperatures. They survive entirely o their reindeer herd and when the deer migrate so do they. Dr. Wells was able to track the blood of the Native Americans back to the Chukchi people showing they crossed the Bering Strait and got into the Americas and from there spread out.

Dr. Wells visited Lascaux, France to visit the Lascaux caves filled with the famous cave paintings. Art is a great way to take a look into the past and by studying them it helped give a look into the lives of our ancestors. The species that created these works of art are called Cromagnons.

Dr. Wells finished his journey in Arizona where he met with Navajo natives and told hois whole story of how their blood can be traced back to the first humans. This stop concluded his journey and the final destination for early humans.

Wells next headed to the Fertile Crescent to further investigate the diaspora of these early humans out of Africa. They had to get out of Africa someway and so Wells headed here to test for the ancient marker. He result came up as expected the marker did exist here proving early humans did pass through here.

Dr. Wells visited India because of some questions raised in his research. In order to get to Australia from Africa they had to cross through southern Asia. So this brought him to test men in India to see if they carried the ancient marker that originated in Africa. Results turned out that the men tested did infact carry the marker which shows that our ancestors did infact pass through India on their way to Australia.

According the the fossil record homo sapiens originated in Africa around 200,000 years ago. That is why Dr. Spencer Wells started his journey here along with the Sanbushmen tribe as his starting point because blood of isolated populations is easier to connect with the past. The Sanbushmen tribe are an indigenous tribe in Africa that are decendents of the first people on earth. The San peoples' genetics were able to be traced back through a marker common among early humans. Everything about the San people in their way of life is believed to be exactly how the early humans acted and survived. The San Bushmen also have physical features seen all throughout the world which further proves the theory of their ancestors passing down genes which when the early populations spread out got passed on to thier offspring. If you refer to the Human Migration Map down below you will see that the early inhabitants spread out from one central point

The next stop on Dr. Wells journey was Australia. He was able to trace the marker from the Sanbushmen to the indigenous Arboriginees of Australia. The marker found was able to be traced back to be 50,000 years old. The Aboriginees have the marker but the Africans do not which means that Africa was a definite starting point in the human race. Aboriginees were skilled in the art of storytelling. All stories were kept in the form of oral records meaning every story was passed down from memory and word of mouth. They believed that the originated in Australia and did not come from anywhere else. But one question stilled remained, how did the first humans get all the way to Australia from Africa? This led Dr. Wells to his next location for further research.

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