Astoria, Queens, New York is the melting pot of melting pots, with a range of skin tones, heights, weights, hair types, and eye shapes, to say nothing of their beliefs, cultures, languages, and trades. But just how different are we? At a street fair in the heart of Astoria, on a sweltering July day, geneticist Spencer Wells and his team take DNA samples from this amazingly diverse group. These samples will show how a selection of New Yorkers: a waitress, a teacher, a councilman, a fashion model, and a mother, among many others, with ethnic origins as diverse as Thai, Puerto Rican and African - are all connected; that they, like everyone else on the planet, can trace their ancestry back to the same small group of Homo sapiens who began eking out a living in Africa less than 200,000 years ago.
Astoria, Queens, New York is the melting pot of melting pots, with a range of skin tones, heights, weights, hair types, and eye shapes, to say nothing of their beliefs, cultures, languages, and trades. But just how different are we? At a street fair in the heart of Astoria, on a sweltering July day, geneticist Spencer Wells and his team take DNA samples from this amazingly diverse group. These samples will show how a selection of New Yorkers: a waitress, a teacher, a councilman, a fashion model, and a mother, among many others, with ethnic origins as diverse as Thai, Puerto Rican and African - are all connected; that they, like everyone else on the planet, can trace their ancestry back to the same small group of Homo sapiens who began eking out a living in Africa less than 200,000 years ago.
General Note
Encoded with permission for digital streaming by Infobase on May 18, 2013.
Learn360 is distributed by Infobase for Films for the Humanities & Sciences, Cambridge Educational, Meridian Education, and Shopware.
Content Note
Investigating our Common Ancestry (1:03) -- Genographic Project (4:11) -- Mapping Early Human Migration (2:17) -- Locating Scientific Adam and Eve (3:19) -- Linking Modern and Ancient Humans (3:19) -- Methods for Tracing Human Migration (2:36) -- Homo Sapiens Birthplace (1:16) -- Recognizing Common Roots (2:02) -- First Branch on Human Family Tree (2:00) -- Human Species Crisis (4:40) -- First Migration from Africa (2:51) -- Routes out of Africa (2:02) -- Populating Australia (2:24) -- Migration Motivations (2:01) -- Controversy over Lost Populations in India (3:48) -- Fragile Human Lineages (2:38) -- Asian Ethnic Evolution (2:16) -- Second Migration from Africa (2:59) -- Route Back to Africa (2:00) -- Genetic Origins of Language (4:23) -- Unexpected Genetic Roots (2:55) -- Adapting to Northern Climates (3:30) -- Genetic Factors in Race (3:57) -- Humans Populating Europe (2:28) -- Neanderthal Extinction (5:19) -- Promoting Tolerance through Ancestry (3:46) -- First Americans (4:46) -- Debate on Populating America (3:38) -- Longest Human Journey (2:22) -- Completing the Genographic Project (5:59) -- Proving our Human Family Connections (2:43) -- Credits: The Human Family Tree (0:16).