Human Evolutionary Genetics

Human Evolutionary Genetics reaches its third edition at a time when sequencing and analyzing whole genomes, modern and ancient, has become rapid, affordable, and routine. These advances have led to an avalanche of data on present-day and archaic humans, and a remarkable series of revelations about our past. This new and completely revised edition makes sense of this rich and complex information, tying it into other sources of evidence from paleontology, archaeology, paleoclimatology and linguistics. The book takes readers on a journey from the prehistoric origins of our ancestors through to the historical era.

Chapters describing genome variation and how it can tell us about demography and selection provide a firm foundation for readers to understand the rest of the content. The book describes the functional and evolutionary consequences of genome variation for genetic disorders, infectious disease susceptibility, and normal phenotypic variation. A new chapter places other species in the human evolutionary story, including domesticated animals, and the parasites and microbes that live within us. The book ends by examining the personal genome, the rise of direct-to-consumer testing, and the possible future of human evolution.

Key Features

• Embraces genome-wide approaches throughout while explaining the contribution of studies of single genes and loci

• Comprehensively integrates evidence from present-day and ancient genomes

• Explores social and cultural influences on current patterns of genetic diversity

• Addresses the ethical issues around studying human genetic variation

• Comprehensively and beautifully illustrated, with artwork elucidating different concepts and presenting complex experimental data clearly

• Each chapter concludes with a series of review questions, allowing students to test their understanding of chapter content and to link concepts between chapters

• References listed at the end of each chapter include highlighted key papers, which are recommended reading for students