Word On Books
with Jeremy Fenton

The Seven Daughters of Eve

By Bryan Sykes, Published by Bantam Press

The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes ostensibly sets out to detail the "...astonishing story that reveals how each of us can trace our genetic ancestors". It does no such thing - unless, that is, you happen to have a geneticist and lab in your back shed!

Thankfully the book is much more interesting than it appears from its premise. Professor Sykes is - along with a handful of other people scattered around the globe - responsible for some of the most amazing science of the last half-century (if not ever!).

Within the mutation rate of mitochondrial DNA (a piece of cell-structure that passes only through matrilineal lines of descent) is one of the most reliable and easily read markers for accurately looking into our planet's biological past.

Not only does this exploration of our mothers' legacies pinpoint the seven common ancestors of all people of European descent (they existed from 45,000 to around 10,000 years ago) but it also clears up some of the big questions regarding what is romantically called the 'peopling of the Earth'.

Sadly, Thor Heyerdahl's personal quest to prove that the Pacific Islands were populated (at least partially) via the South Americas is downed in a blaze of test-tubes. More fundamentally, the so-called 'out-of-Africa' hypothesis for the spread of humans across the globe is given a categorical thumbs-up.

The writing left me cold at times - the book is not well served by an over pandering to popularism - however there is absolutely no doubt that these are amazing, cutting-edge discoveries, profoundly affecting in their consequences for any number of the branches of biological-based science. Well worth a read.

Architects of Eternity

By Richard Corfield, Published by Headline

"We live now in the age of the media fossil," writes Richard Corfield at the beginning of his wonderful new book on the science of fossils.

It wasn't that long ago that the word 'fossil' conjured up images of old bones stored in hidden-wings of dusty museums. These days (through the courtesy of the Steven Spielbergs and Michael Crichtons among us) that view is more likely to be of "...living organisms that merely - and somewhat inconveniently - happen to be dead".

Whatever your perception, fossils give us a look into what scientists call 'Deep Time' - the unimaginably-long period that stretched from sometime after the beginning of life on Earth to just several thousands of years-ago. This knowledge is not only fascinating, it is invaluable to a modern period racing to answer questions such as: Where did we come from? And how did we get here?

As the author points out, studying the past - if one goes back far enough - is tantamount to looking at another planet. One that definitely had life on it!

Acknowledging that science doesn't exist in a moral or political vacuum, Corfield also takes the time to look into the specific societal and personal agendas that have driven fossil research throughout the last couple of centuries. In the process, some of the big (and often eccentric) names in science are given a place in the scheme of bone-hunting and classification.

This is an authoritative book on its subject - comprehensive, witty and accessible without an over-subservience to popularism. Highly recommended reading on science.

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