A must read for those interested in our past and where we came from. Just technical enough but not overbearing for the everyday reader.

Whatever its other merits, this is an excellent case-study in how science should be conducted. Sykes’ DNA evidence contradicted the prevailing orthodoxy among archaeologists concerning the origins of the Polynesians, and though it took a few years and a lot of effort responding to objections, he and his colleagues eventually prevailed. Distinguished scientists conducted additional research and conceded that they had been mistaken.

Sykes explains difficult concepts with clarity - quite a difficult thing to do, and I’m not going to demonstrate how difficult by trying unsuccessfully to explain them myself here. I suggest you read the book. The last chapters are fiction, which felt very odd when I was reading them, but their object is to illustrate the sort of lives we might expect each of his mitochondrial ‘clan mothers’ to have led. The scope of the book is Europe and Africa, where he locates 7 of the ‘clan mothers’; the final chapter gives readers a glimpse of the big picture with (if I remember correctly) about 30 ‘clan mothers’ in total. As far as I can work out, I’m a descendant of the most recent of them, dubbed Jasmine, who is thought to have lived in the Tigris-Euphrates ‘fertile crescent’ about 10,000 years ago.

Knowing one’s mitochondrial DNA haplotype is of quite limited use for genealogy. The fact that all my female ancestors for the past 10,000 years had identical mitochondrial DNA might in certain circumstances demonstrate that you and I are not related through my maternal grandmother, but if we do match then so what - my ‘clan mother’, Jasmine, has many millions of descendants with the same haplotype.

This book has been around for 20 years now, so maybe it’s time for an update. There must be lots more to tell.

I read the whole thing in a day, so that should give an indication of how I feel about it. I think the writing in the first parts is excellent, with care being taken to make complicated genetic science accessible to people without a science background. It's interesting, compelling, and thought provoking.
But then, and I can't be the only one to think this, when he starts describing the lives of the seven daughters, it gets weird. Does anyone else feel like he got crushes on these women from spending so long looking at their DNA? No? Just me?
Still, would recommend.