Trends in Cell Biology
Volume 9, Issue 12, 1 December 1999, Pages M13-M16
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Review
Human evolution

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0962-8924(99)01688-8Get rights and content

Abstract

The origin, history, and singularity of our species has fascinated storytellers, philosophers and scientists throughout, and doubtless before, recorded history. Anthropology, the modern-era discipline that deals with these issues, is a notoriously contentious field, perhaps because the topic at hand – the nature of our own species – is one that is difficult or impossible to approach in an unbiased way. Recently, molecular genetics has increasingly contributed to this field. Here, I briefly discuss three areas where I believe molecular studies are likely to be of decisive importance in the future. These concern the questions of where and when our species originated, what the genetic background for characters that differ between us and apes is, and how the phenotypic traits that vary among human groups have evolved.

Section snippets

Origins of human genetic variation

The questions of when and where our species originated might seem quite straightforward, but, in fact, the definition of the origin of a species is not trivial. However, from a molecular-genetic perspective, it is clear that the DNA sequences found in contemporary individuals have been passed down to them from previous generations. It is also clear that, in every generation, some DNA sequences are not passed on because some individuals have no children or the sequence fails to be transmitted

Ancient DNA

How does the picture of our ancestry described above fit with the picture of human origins provided by paleontology? Here, we run into the problem that, while geneticists specialize in studying the genes in people that exist today, which thus are bound to have had ancestors in the past, paleontologists study fossils that might not have descendants. A potentially valuable approach to resolve this problem would be to study DNA sequences from fossils, as this would allow direct inference of the

Human traits

The human gene pool is, in general, very mixed, whereas some phenotypic traits show a distribution that seems to vary with geography in a systematic way, such as skin colour, facial features, hair texture and aspects of the digestion of foods. One striking observation is that such traits are located at places where our bodies interact directly with the environment. Therefore, it is easy to imagine that selection could have shaped these differences in a relatively short time, particularly if

What makes us human?

A number of abilities set us apart from other species on this planet. Perhaps the most notable among these are cognitive skills, such as the use of a complex language, long-term planning and an advanced ability to give and receive instructions. These features, which together are generally used to define us as human, emerged in an ancestral species after our lineages diverged from its closest living relatives – the African apes. It would seem that the identification of the genetic differences

Concluding remarks

For the first of the three areas discussed here, the origins of genetic variation in humans, it is clear that many more worldwide studies of genetic variation at different loci are needed. This work is likely to be performed in the near future, not least because it will be of great importance for finding genes that are involved in complex traits. Hopefully, it will be performed in a coordinated way, such that the data will be compiled and compared rationally. However, an all-out sequencing

Acknowledgements

I am greatly indebted to T. Baumgärtel, I. Ebersberger, W. Enard, H. Kaessmann, A. Stone, M. Stoneking and L. Vigilant for comments on drafts of this manuscript. Our work is supported by the DFG, the MPG and the BMBF.

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