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In Search of Our Ancient Ancestors: From the Big Bang to Modern Britain, In Science and Myth
A top genealogist “shows how genetics helps and how it roots each of us in this magnificent story of Life on Earth in the most meaningful way imaginable.”—Reunite Magazine “What a fine long pedigree you have given the human race.”—Charles Darwin to Charles Lyell, 1863 How distantly are we related to dinosaurs? How much of your DNA came from Neanderthals? How are the builders of Stonehenge connected to great-grandpa? According to science, life first appeared on Earth about 3,500 million years ago. Every living thing is descended from that first spark, including all of us. But if we trace a direct line down from those original life forms to ourselves, what do we find? What is the full story of our family tree over the past 3,500 million years, and how are we able to trace ourselves so far back? From single-celled organisms to sea-dwelling vertebrates; amphibians to reptiles; tiny mammals to primitive man; the first Homo sapiens to the cave painters of Ice Age Europe and the first farmers down to the Norman Conquest, this book charts not only the extraordinary story of our ancient ancestors but also our 40,000-year-long quest to discover our roots, from ancient origin myths of world-shaping mammoths and great floods down to the scientific discovery of our descent from the Genetic Adam and the Mitochondrial Eve. “Having read it I’m still slightly shell-shocked by the range of topics that he covers, from the origins of the universe and life on Earth to the present-day DNA analysis that aims to answer some of our questions about our past. And everything in between!”—LostCousins
404 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 31, 2020
8 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Adolph
20 books5 followersI went to St George’s College, Weybridge; Durham University (studying Medieval history) and The Institute of Heraldic and Genealogical Studies, Canterbury, where I became a professional genealogist. I have been a freelance genealogist since 2003. I try to bring all my practical skills in historical and genealogical research to my writing, which I hope gives it an edge over many professional writers, who are not also day-to-day researchers. Besides research and writing I am also an occasional broadcaster. My most recent T.V. appearance was on the Australian version of Who Do You Think You Are? with Barry Humphries, the genius behind Dame Edna Everage. Although our interview appears in the middle of the program, it was actually the last bit of filming he ever did before his death. We shared a love of gardening, we discovered, and landscape painting. All of which is simply to show that good writers (like good entertainers) are not one-dimensional.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 24, 2016
I received this book from Pen & Sword courtesy of UNRV, where this review will also appear. I will say from the outset that the reason I accepted the review copy was because I found the concept interesting enough to draw me in to read, so I started on good terms.
I am, for those who don’t know me, a historian and author with a solid bent towards the classical world (especially of Rome) and to the successor world of Rome. I am a scientific dunce. I cannot change a lightbulb, or even explain how one works. But just ask me about the religious policy of Maxentius, I dare you. So it turns out that there’s only a small amount of this book that I can say deals with my area of expertise.
Adoph has set out on the grandest of missions: to explain to the layman how the universe came into being, how life and eventually humans evolved and how they began to shape their world into one in which succession and descendency mattered. Nothing too grand, then…. I would say the book can be neatly split into perhaps 6 parts (which clearly do not correspond with the 5 parts into which the author divides it!)
1. Adolph begins by spending perhaps a third of the book on dealing with the creation of our world, from a fairly in depth look at the big bang, right down through our evolution with legs and lungs, right to sloping foreheads, neanderthals, Homo-everything etc. I personally found this section fascinating, as it examined a subject about which I am vague at best, and did it in an engaging and clever manner.
2. The evolution of humanity from our earliest stages down to the city-builders and farmers was equally interesting to me, as it filled in a lot of blanks in my knowledge and did so, again, in a engaging way.
3. Sadly, for me, part 2 slid into what I consider part 3, which was a seemingly endless investigation of genetics. I coped with the subject until about the thirtieth use of the world ‘haplotype’, but after a while the sciency section really blurred, and I had to fight to keep my interest. Did I mention I am about as scientifically-oriented as a cheese and onion baked potato. Now don’t get me wrong – there will be people who love this section, and good on them. But not I.
4. Aha… suddenly we’re back to the fun stuff for me, with an investigation into the world of the Neolithic through to the iron age. Troy, Sumer, Greece, Rome, Egypt, ancient Britain etc. Now, to be honest I was a little taken aback here by some of his precise text. ‘Hallstatt culture – a social order dominated by violent warriors whose faith in the druidic concept of reincarnation…’ is a prime example. The only records of the druids are from Roman authors and are heavily influence by Roman views. We simply have no idea what the druids’ concepts actually were. Similarly, talking of William I of Normandy, Adolph says ‘His descendants sit on the British throne to this very day.’ They do not. There is no direct blood link between the Norman Duke William and the house of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, separated by a series of incoming bloodlines and usurpers. I know this is probably small fry in the scheme of the book and has been simplified to smoothly put the point to the reader, but if discrepancies like this appear here, might they appear elsewhere? Perhaps this is me on my historian soapbox and, to be honest, it does not invalidate the point and the general message of the book which shows a great deal of in-depth research.
5. An examination of the creation myths around the world, attempting to put them into a unified perspective and putting them against the background of evolution and descendency. This was, for me, the most fascinating part of the whole book, and the one which taught me most. I will take away with me pieces of this research as life knowledge. Moreover, without wanting to annoy my religious friends and readers, you all know my views, and I smiled at the following lines: ‘We can recognise them as the products of active, questing human minds, sometimes stimulated by religious trances and religious drug use. We can relax and enjoy them for the fantastic stories they really are.’
6. A conclusion and then a dip, briefly, possibly just to befuddle me, into the whole haplogroup science again.
Overall, the book was a thoroughly engaging and interesting read, clearly not entirely suitable to everyone. A science duffer like me had to frown and count the floor tiles throughout the genetic investigations. A true believing follower of any religion will have some trouble with the pragmatism. But I think everyone will find something of interest within and I can guarantee that everyone will learn something.
I am, for those who don’t know me, a historian and author with a solid bent towards the classical world (especially of Rome) and to the successor world of Rome. I am a scientific dunce. I cannot change a lightbulb, or even explain how one works. But just ask me about the religious policy of Maxentius, I dare you. So it turns out that there’s only a small amount of this book that I can say deals with my area of expertise.
Adoph has set out on the grandest of missions: to explain to the layman how the universe came into being, how life and eventually humans evolved and how they began to shape their world into one in which succession and descendency mattered. Nothing too grand, then…. I would say the book can be neatly split into perhaps 6 parts (which clearly do not correspond with the 5 parts into which the author divides it!)
1. Adolph begins by spending perhaps a third of the book on dealing with the creation of our world, from a fairly in depth look at the big bang, right down through our evolution with legs and lungs, right to sloping foreheads, neanderthals, Homo-everything etc. I personally found this section fascinating, as it examined a subject about which I am vague at best, and did it in an engaging and clever manner.
2. The evolution of humanity from our earliest stages down to the city-builders and farmers was equally interesting to me, as it filled in a lot of blanks in my knowledge and did so, again, in a engaging way.
3. Sadly, for me, part 2 slid into what I consider part 3, which was a seemingly endless investigation of genetics. I coped with the subject until about the thirtieth use of the world ‘haplotype’, but after a while the sciency section really blurred, and I had to fight to keep my interest. Did I mention I am about as scientifically-oriented as a cheese and onion baked potato. Now don’t get me wrong – there will be people who love this section, and good on them. But not I.
4. Aha… suddenly we’re back to the fun stuff for me, with an investigation into the world of the Neolithic through to the iron age. Troy, Sumer, Greece, Rome, Egypt, ancient Britain etc. Now, to be honest I was a little taken aback here by some of his precise text. ‘Hallstatt culture – a social order dominated by violent warriors whose faith in the druidic concept of reincarnation…’ is a prime example. The only records of the druids are from Roman authors and are heavily influence by Roman views. We simply have no idea what the druids’ concepts actually were. Similarly, talking of William I of Normandy, Adolph says ‘His descendants sit on the British throne to this very day.’ They do not. There is no direct blood link between the Norman Duke William and the house of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, separated by a series of incoming bloodlines and usurpers. I know this is probably small fry in the scheme of the book and has been simplified to smoothly put the point to the reader, but if discrepancies like this appear here, might they appear elsewhere? Perhaps this is me on my historian soapbox and, to be honest, it does not invalidate the point and the general message of the book which shows a great deal of in-depth research.
5. An examination of the creation myths around the world, attempting to put them into a unified perspective and putting them against the background of evolution and descendency. This was, for me, the most fascinating part of the whole book, and the one which taught me most. I will take away with me pieces of this research as life knowledge. Moreover, without wanting to annoy my religious friends and readers, you all know my views, and I smiled at the following lines: ‘We can recognise them as the products of active, questing human minds, sometimes stimulated by religious trances and religious drug use. We can relax and enjoy them for the fantastic stories they really are.’
6. A conclusion and then a dip, briefly, possibly just to befuddle me, into the whole haplogroup science again.
Overall, the book was a thoroughly engaging and interesting read, clearly not entirely suitable to everyone. A science duffer like me had to frown and count the floor tiles throughout the genetic investigations. A true believing follower of any religion will have some trouble with the pragmatism. But I think everyone will find something of interest within and I can guarantee that everyone will learn something.
January 7, 2016
Fascinating. If you are interested in genealogy or just how do we fit in the world, this is a study of just that...understanding the science, the creation stories, and how they work together so that we can explain and understand our human story. It could fit as a companion to Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.
April 8, 2017
Interesting book which combines genealogy and genetics to trace back "our" ancestors. Adolph is able to explain both fields well and does so whilst writing an engaging narrative. Beyond looking at the evolutionary and genealogical development of us, the homo sapiens in all our genetic varieties, Adolph also discusses the scientific theories on the cultures of the earliest human up until the bronze and iron ages, to the extent that it is possible. Here he also manages to engage with some (basic) archaeology and the religious systems and origin stories of these different cultures. I found the book very compelling and insightful and Adolph was able to make the application of genetics to his overarching narrative accessible without "dumbing it down".
The only downside for me was his choice of focusing on Britain. This was disappointing because not all his readers will have a connection to or interest in Britain and, more importantly, because a lot of his discussions on ancient Britain (bronze and iron age) came down to speculation or simple statements of "we don't know" due to the lack of historical or archaeological evidence. This made the choice to discuss Britain, or to highlight it, a bit forced, as there simply was not that much to talk about (especially considering all the other places which had or have more sources).
In the end this was an excellent read but with a minor downside (which other readers might not have an issue with).
The only downside for me was his choice of focusing on Britain. This was disappointing because not all his readers will have a connection to or interest in Britain and, more importantly, because a lot of his discussions on ancient Britain (bronze and iron age) came down to speculation or simple statements of "we don't know" due to the lack of historical or archaeological evidence. This made the choice to discuss Britain, or to highlight it, a bit forced, as there simply was not that much to talk about (especially considering all the other places which had or have more sources).
In the end this was an excellent read but with a minor downside (which other readers might not have an issue with).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews