More of a scientific journal than a novel, but I loved the content and the imagination that it sparked envisioning the migration of humans over time.

כמה פעמים שאלתם את עצמכם את השאלה מאיפה באתי? כך מתחיל בראין סייקס את המסע הארוך לחשיפת ההיסטוריה האנושית כפי שהיא מצטיירת מהגנים ואל הגילוי המופלא ששורשי כל תושבי אירופה (ואמריקה) מובילים באופן גנטי רציף אל 7 נשים מהתקופה הפליאוליתית העליונה (תקופת הציידים- לקטים).

המסע מתחיל אי שם בשנות ה- 90 המוקדמות, כשצוות המחקר של פרופסור סייקס נקרא לחלץ דנ"א מעצמות עתיקות של איש הקרח שנמצא בדורסט ומסתיים לאחר כעשור, בשלהי שנת 2000 כאשר נמצאים תימוכין לממצאים של סייקס בנושא דנ"א מטוכונדרי ע"י אימות מגן חיצוני ולמעשה לא גן אלא כרומוזום Y, הקובע את מין העובר.

בחלקו הראשון של הספר מתואר המסע אל.

הוא מאופיין בתיאורים על המחקר, שיטות המחקר, מושאי המחקר ואופן בחירתם ועוד. סייקס מקדיש חלק נרחב לספקות והעימותים שליוו כל שלב במחקר וכל פרסום של התוצאות.

בחלק מהפרקים התיאור מרתק, הממצאים מרתקים וההסברים מרתקים יותר למרות שישנם פרקים שבהם חלק מהפרטים מיותרים (לטעמי) והוא נוטה לדרמטיזציה של חלק מהדברים.

לטעמי, הפרקים המעניינים ביותר בחלק הזה מתמקדים בויכוח בין הצוות של סייקס לצוותים אחרים, כאשר השיא הוא בפרק בו גדול מתנגדי השיטה מסכים עם הממצאים של הצוות של סייקס.

בחלק השני של הספר מתאר סייקס את הגנאולוגיה של העולם ושל אירופה בפרט כפי שהיא מצטיירת מהמחקר שלו. גם כאן מצאתי שאין אחידות וישנם פרקים מעניינים יותר ומעניינים פחות.

הוא מקדיש לכל אחת מהאימהות פרק ובו הוא מנסה לתאר את הסביבה, האקלים , החיים ונסיבות החיים של אותה האם. התיאור נעשה על בסיס ממצאים ארכיאולוגיים מהתקופה המשוערת בה חייה האם (התיארוך נעשה על פי מספר המוטציות שנתגלו במטוכונדריום ועל פי נוסחה שמוסברת ומאומתת בספר).

התיאורים בחלקם מזכירים את "שבט דב המערות", ולמרות שמעניין לקרוא כיצד סייקס תופס את 7 הנשים ואת החיים שלהן, ברור שאין כאן מדע אמיתי.

אני ממליצה בחום למי שאוהב את הזאנר, לא רק בגלל התיאוריה שמאירה עניים, התרגום הנהדר, אלא גם בגלל היכולות של סייקס להפוך תהליך מדעי מאוד משעמם להרפתקה שמי יודע מה צפון לנו בסופה.

My book club read this one, but I didn't finish it. The first half was fascinating, but then the author tried too hard, by creating fictional personalities for each of the seven daughters. Still, worth it for the first half.

This was a really fascinating read. I knew only a very little bit about genetics and ancient human history going in, but Sykes writes in a way that feels entry-level understandable AND useful. In other words, I didn't feel like I was being talked down to but I did feel like I understood all of the important mechanisms described in the book. This is much easier said than done, I'm sure.

The book is about the way a particular kind of DNA is used to trace the maternal lineage of people over the course of many thousands of years. Incredibly, this enables us to approximate seven women in ancient history whose descendants make up every single modern human of European descent. In so doing, we can understand with some measure of accuracy where each of our ancestors lived, what groups they may have belonged to, the path humanity took as it traveled out of Africa and populated the world, etc. Besides being an actual ground-breaking scientist, Sykes has a real talent for storytelling. For much of the book it's the sort of story he might tell over drinks to his friends, about a funny thing that happened between himself and a professional rival, about an exciting new discovery a peer made, about the modern implications of his work. He draws connections that are genuinely thrilling: what it means to have a scientific ancestry that depends entirely on women, not the manual ones drawn up by and for men. A history that cannot be erased by oppressors and those who would destroy someone's culture. He is able to put across the excitement he surely must have felt first-hand while making these connections and discoveries.

Fascinující kniha, která se vydává do naší daleké minulosti prostřednictvím DNA nás samotných dnešních lidí.
Děkuji za doporučení a dále doporučuji.
Jedna z knih, kterou jsem musela číst ještě hluboko po půlnoci, nehledě na ranní brzké vstávání. Ačkoli naučná, je strhující od začátku do konce.

This book by the great pioneer of genetic archaeology and Oxford professor is at times rather dreadful. Many readers have been appalled by the fictional biographies of the individual women at the origin of the seven "maternal" clans to which 95% of Europe's population belonged at the end of the 20th century. I can hardly disagree. Syke's story of his research and his elucidation of the basics of mitochondrial DNA basis make for fascinating reading. Syke's yarn-spinning is as tedious as it is uninformative.
Syke's greatest sin in my view is his public gloating over his academic rivals that he bested in his long and distinguished career. Nonetheless his venom and spite may be the most entertaining part of this book.
Syke's big point is that he believes he demonstrated that 75% of the current European gene pool dates from the paleolithic era (1.8 million years ago to 10,000) AD. This would suggest that the diffusion of technology, the introduction of new agriculture methods and the changes in the linguistic profile of the Europe over the last 12,000 years were not the result of population movements. Rather the various peoples of Europe either invented new techniques on their own or simply adopted them as they became aware of them. This is a very major point as it had long assumed that the innovations had arrived with migrations of peoples.
Sykes simply allows his major thesis to get submerged in a great deal of anecdotes and somewhat pointless fictionalizing. Nonetheless this book still merits being read as it provides considerable insight into genetic archaeology which is now yielding very interesting results from the four corners of the world. However, the reader should first read Sykes "Blood of the Isles" which is vastly superior in every way.

A great scientific detective story

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. I found Sykes’ style very breezy and readable, and the presentation of technical material presented at a level that most people will be able to follow. The sections that are semi-technical may challenge those without a science background a bit, but are easy to skim if they aren’t of interest or seem incomprehensible.

He wrote at a very personal level, at times maybe a bit too much so, as he delved into the academic squabbles that populate the scientific research world, but the personal touch made the book very approachable. To me it read like a series of detective stories, and the assembly of clues and construction of his hypothesis at each stage very engaging.

When the launches the final section, where he personalizes the seven daughters, the pivot is initially jarring and feels a bit like being launched into Cave of the Clan Bear, but I enjoyed it as well. While his forte is clearly science and not fiction, I thought he did an excellent job of framing the location and time frame, geography and climate, hunting and gathering techniques and targets, and tools and technologies without too many visible seams. At the same time, each woman gained a face and a presence.

Cool stuff.

after taking 23andme test, started reading book in this area.
this book is a little bit old, but still very relevant.

I remember seeing a review where this book was referred to as "quasi-fiction." Now that I've read the book, I understand why. While I understand that Sykes was having to explain a relatively new branch of science to non-scientists, this is the kind of frothy pop that has probably done more to make the public science illiterate than literate.

Even allowing that this book was published over twenty years ago and therefore badly out-of-date, I still thought it didn't live up its hype. The first half is supposed to be an explanation of mDNA and the research of it, but ends up being mostly Sykes patting himself on the back for being involved in high-profile cases while making mDNA out to be the keys to all riddles and kingdoms. (It's not.) The second half, in which he profiles his "seven daughters" was pure fiction given in a tone as if the author were talking to junior high students. There were times when I felt like I was reading a rough draft for a Jean Auel book during that second half. I guess I should be glad he limited himself to the seven "clan mothers" with European ties and didn't include the dozens of others in the non-European world.

My low opinion of the book is further colored by one specific thread within it, a thread of sexism. First, he goes on about Watson and Crick's work without once mentioning Rosalind Franklin. Par for the course: Watson and Crick has amnesia about her contribution, too. Of course, he also doesn't bother to mention W&C were infamous for taking credit for other people's work throughout their careers....or that Crick was accused of groping female coworkers or Watson being a racist. The lack of mentioning Franklin's work might have been easy to overlook -- OK, no, it really wasn't -- but then Sykes goes out of his way to mention his own contentious relationship with a female researcher. The mention seemed like an odd aside at first, but came into play chapters later when Sykes went into much detail about how he publicly called this former colleague out while she was on stage at a conference. He was positively crowing about it. If the story needed to be told at all -- and I'm not convinced it added anything to the material -- he could have made his point about the research problems without calling out the other scientist by name and without the blow-by-blow "Guess I showed HER" gloating.

A bit dated in 2016, but flows well. His stuff never seems to come exactly to the point, but rambles around and pokes at the main idea or the misleading title. Well written in the sense that he is witty and knows his subject. Idk what you'd get from this book now that you couldn't get from somewhere else, but it is still a recommended title. I would just recommend a Google Search unless this is required reading.

The title of the book is a bit misleading. While the author does explain his theory of the 7 “daughters” of Europe (not the world), it is worth noting that this book has 2 main sections. The first half, the author gives a thorough background of what DNA is, how biologists like him interpret mitochondrial DNA data to infer how human populations migrated over time, and tells his personal experiences and thought preocesses behind his most ground-breaking experiments. In the human evolutionary biology world, this man is a giant. He was the first to show that DNA could be taken from an ancient skeleton and replicated successfully. He also was involved in solving the mystery of the fate of the Romanov’s using DNA from skeleton samples and living distant relatives. If you are into biology, DNA, and evolution, you will geek out the first half of the book.

The second half of the book makes a sudden change, and the author writes 7 mostly-fictional accounts of 7 women who are the genetic ancestors of the majority modern of Europeans. The author indeed proved through his research that Europeans descend from 7 individual women, but he takes liberty to carve out details in what their life would have been like to spark interest. I didn’t enjoy this section of the book as much.

If you love learning more about human evolution and DNA from one of the world’s leading scientists in the field, this is a great book for you.

Adentrarse en los misterios del genoma humano y descubrir con ello un linaje de miles de mujeres que vivieron antes que nosotros, íntimamente relacionadas con cada uno de nosotros, a pesar de vivir en mundos completamente diferentes es de una emoción indescriptible.