Before The Dawn [Hardcover]

Drawing on a wealth of resource material, Wade builds a comprehensive picture of who we are and where we come from. The "origins" question has been pretty well solved. Darwin's insight that Africa was humanity's home base has been verified in several ways. It is the issue of human traits, their origins and expression, that's in need of clarification. Wade has scoured the research to derive some interesting, and to some, highly disturbing, conclusions.

Writing to his defined audience, Wade’s use of Biblical metaphor touches a nerve. It’s a useful technique as he opens with “Genetics & Genesis”. There’s no doubt in the reader’s mind that “genetics” will be the guiding theme as this book progresses. Genetics and DNA analysis have “enriched our view of the past”, he notes. He assures us, as well, that the processes they depict are still working to guide us into the future. He lists some of the insights these tools have given us. The clear continuity between “the ape world of 5 million years ago and the human world that emerged from it” opens the inventory, which includes cultural input and various social factors, why our global dispersal was so rapid, and how language impinged on our development as a species.

Among the more captivating aspects of our evolutionary track is the number alternative paths we might have followed. Wade explains how ape diversity has made discernment of our lineage an onerous task. An indication of what’s to follow emerges in a section on why we became “naked”. The loss of fur meant that exposed skin required protection from the African sun. All humanity’s skin cells contain melanin, with variations determined by geographic location. The human diaspora out of Africa led to many variations in our make-up. In many ways, we became different as we wandered the face of the globe. Wade proposes that our migrations were encouraged as much by emerging cognitive skills and development of changed relations between the sexes. Another trigger may have come from “an ancient gene” - FOXP2. Widespread among mammals, FOXP2 underwent significant changes in our species. It’s now known to be a major factor in our language skills. Language, often used as the means to reconcile differences, has also led to changes in our relationships from mates to masses of others. Disputes are subject to the use of deception and aggravation. The result, according to a cluster of researchers Wade has read or interviewed, suggests our capacity to wage war is widespread and of long history. Warfare among chimpanzees implies an inherited trait of deep lineage. The “cultural” influences merely exacerbate what is already in place.

After explaining how our species distributed itself around the globe, he describes the “Settlement” process and how it led to agriculture. We take both community and farming as a given today, but it’s a very recent alteration from our heritage. Perhaps of more significance is that “settlements” occurred in widely dispersed sites at various times. The conditions leading to farming and its subsequent changes in human behaviour also were different. What prompted us to take this step? Agriculture resulted in a change from social equality to a hierarchical structure. “Leaders” were needed for planning and implementation of field use, crop distribution and resource allocation, especially water. It’s an interesting facet of this transformation that agriculture emerged where water’s availability was dodgy. Religion, whatever its role in hunter-gatherer times, was increasingly important in stable communities. The entire human social structure changed, with new sets of values and choices becoming the norm.

In what will certainly emerge as one the most discussed segments in this book, Wade dedicates a chapter to “Race”. The issues are based on Wade’s emphasis on how much the human genome has changed in recent [at least on an evolutionary scale] times. While the physical characteristics such as skin colour are manifest, there are other, more subtle aspects of what makes groups of us different from others. Among these are those with or lacking a tolerance for lactic acid upon becoming adults. More significantly perhaps, is the discovery that certain medications work better with some groups than others. Health issues such as these are only now being addressed. Much more work is needed and research funding may be challenging some ideological fixations.

Wade’s synopsis of human evolution is among the top books issued on the topic in recent years. He has no axes of his own to grind, and blunts some dogmas in passing. The research he describes is wide-ranging. More importantly, much of it relates to how we deal with each other across lines of community, nation and humanity as a whole. While no book on the human track will be complete, nor perhaps of major importance for very long, this one will be worth keeping, and re-reading for some time. [stephen a. haines – Ottawa, Canada]

Nicholas Wade has written a really interesting book. He is a journalist for the New York Times who has assimilated the most recent research into the prehistory of our species. He brings to life the excitement that specialists in this field must feel by explaining how the science of genetics has led to deep new insights into our human journey out of Africa some 50,000 years ago.

Apparently, we non-Africans descend from a single group of perhaps no more than 150 hunter-gatherers who left Africa across the southern end of the Red Sea and over the next several thousand years spread across the rest of the globe. Wade describes these ancestors of ours, who were most probably clothed (the genetics of human lice apparently tells us this) and may have spoken the founding language of the species. He shows us how we spread across the continents; explains the impact of the various most recent glacial periods and much more. He's particularly good on the evolutionary basis for warfare, religion and trade.

There is a great section where he speculates on where, when and how we domesticated the dog, or perhaps as he explains, how wolves domesticated themselves into dogs. But wolves don't bark. Is this a crucial behavioral adaptation which attached dogs to our species? Did dogs in turn introduce to humans the idea of private ownership (because dogs attach themselves to an individual, not a group) and did they make the first settlements practical (because they bark at intruders)?

This is also an optimistic book because Wade explains how humans have chosen to balance their instinct for aggression with another instinct for reciprocity which suggests that we are in fact, not doomed after all.

I strongly recommend the book to readers who are interested in history, prehistory, genealogy and new developments in sciences.

The Rideau Reader

Charles Darwin first told the story of human evolution back in 1871 in the Descent of Man. That was more than 50 years before the discovery of DNA, and although Darwin made numerous insightful observations and educated guesses about our past, there was much he did not know. Over the 100-plus years since Darwin's death, we have learned more and more about our own past. I think Charles Darwin would love this book.

Before the Dawn tells the story of our own evolution, as best we know it today. Wade considers and discusses the evidence from language, culture and especially the newest form of information -- genetics. Much of the story is the same. As Darwin conjectured, humans originally evolved in Africa. But the story is now far more detailed. It now appears that we are all the ancestors of a small group of people who left Africa at about the same time, and gradually replaced the "archaic" humans, e.g., the Neanderthals, who had left Africa before us.

Before the Dawn is very readable, but at the same time is not condescending. Moreover, Wade does not shy away from controversial topics; he does his best to tell it like it is. This is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it.