Mapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins [Paperback]

Given the entrenched thinking about "race" in human cultures, calling Olson's task daunting is grievous understatement. The human diaspora from Africa he traces reaches across 150 millennia. Unlike most other species, humanity developed at an astonishing rate. Tracing genetic changes with humans migrating across the planet, not always in one direction is staggeringly difficult. Olson struggles, usually successfully, to reconcile the paleoanthropological finds with genetics research. He demonstrates the likely origins of the Chinese, Europeans, Australian and Western Hemispheric Aborigines. One subset of our species, the Jews, receives some special attention.

Olson recognises that much of the information he addresses is "highly contentious", but he bravely sets out to reconcile the views of many researchers. He examines in some detail, for example, hotly disputed notions about linguistic evolution. Given that the human population at the beginnings of language was already "on the road", his own description of language origins seems a bit thin. It would be unfair to fault him for this section, however, particularly since his aim isn't to prove or disprove any of the theories, but to use linguistic evolution as a metaphor. A full analysis of the topics in historical linguistics would double the size of the book. Readers interested in the topic should start with Olson's bibliography and keep reading.

Does Olson succeed in his quest? With the advances made in genetic analysis over the past generation, the origin of our species in Africa is now beyond dispute. Whether there's been enough time for local populations to form genetically distinct sub-species of Homo sapiens, Olson deftly refutes. There's been far too much intermingling and interbreeding to establish the kinds of races birds have done. That cultural ties keep groups with some identifiable physical traits such as the epicanthic folds of some Asian peoples doesn't justify labelling them with racial identities. A broadening of marriage traditions would quickly blend out the trait, as it already has in some areas.

Olson has performed a monumental task in defining our species. He covers the globe over an immense time span. He traces, as best he can with current evidence, the various tracks our ancestors took in occupying the planet. There's little doubt he's built a solid case for our identity as a single, if widespread, species. He helps his theme with some useful maps and other diagrams. Clearly our common ancestor denies the notion of "separate races".

On the other hand, why did he feel the need to make this effort. Clearly, "race", whether or not biologically valid, is a strong element in human thinking. Why this should be doesn't appear to be something we can identify through genetic analysis. The cause is ultimately, as Olson tentatively concedes, cultural. Bring up your children to hate someone identifiable, and they likely will do so. In Hawaii, likely the planet's most ethnically blended society, intermarriage, mixed schools and churches and full job opportunity, still has not shed divisions among its people. Olson would like his book to help overcome those divisions. It isn't likely to happen unless every human alive reads this book. And accepts his conclusions. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

But this book also contains several concise arguments against the concept of human "races," a construct that does not hold up to scientific scrutiny at all (but which has been used for the past three hundred years to justify the worst crimes against humanity). The main points are that 1) while there are averages to the features of ethnic groups, these do not hold when taking individuals individually, that is, the variations between individuals of a given "race" are greater than average variations between the races themselves; 2) the vast majority of humans have "mixed" ancestry beyond about four generations; 3) every human being alive today is descended from the groups which left Africa some 65,000 years ago. Racism should really be called "contingencism", that is, when one discriminates against a group of persons based upon the wholly accidental adaptations of their ancestors to local geographical/climatic conditions.