Before the Dawn

Based on a groundbreaking synthesis of recent scientific findings, an acclaimed New York Times science reporter tells a bold and provocative new story of the history of our ancient ancestors and the evolution of human nature.

Just in the last three years a flood of new scientific findings — driven by revelations discovered in the human genome — has provided compelling new answers to many long-standing mysteries about our most ancient ancestors — the people who first evolved in Africa and then went on to colonize the whole world. Critically acclaimed New York Times science reporter Nicholas Wade weaves this host of news-making findings together for the first time into an intriguing new history of the human story before the dawn of civilization. Sure to stimulate lively controversy, he makes the case for novel arguments about many hotly debated issues such as the evolution of language and race and the genetic roots of human nature, and reveals that human evolution has continued even to today.

In wonderfully lively and lucid prose, Wade reveals the answers that researchers have ingeniously developed to so many puzzles: When did language emerge? When and why did we start to wear clothing? How did our ancestors break out of Africa and defeat the more physically powerful Neanderthals who stood in their way? Why did the different races evolve, and why did we come to speak so many different languages? When did we learn to live with animals and where and when did we domesticate man's first animal companions, dogs? How did human nature change during the thirty-five thousand years between the emergence of fully modern humans and the first settlements?

Wade takes readers to the forefront of research in a sweeping and engrossing narrative unlike any other, the first to reveal how genetic discoveries are helping to weave together the perspectives of archaeology, paleontology, anthropology, linguistics, and many other fields. This will be the most talked about science book of the season.

"Scientists are using DNA analysis to understand our prehistory: the evolution of humans; their relation to the Neanderthals, who populated Europe and the Near East; and 'Homo erectus,' who roamed the steppes of Asia. Most importantly, geneticists can trace the movements of a little band of human ancestors, numbering perhaps no more than 150, who crossed the Red Sea from east Africa about 50,000 years ago. Within a few thousand years, their descendents, 'Homo sapiens,' became masters of all they surveyed, the other humanoid species having become extinct. According to New York Times science reporter Wade, this DNA analysis shows that evolution isn't restricted to the distant past: Iceland has been settled for only 1,000 years, but the inhabitants have already developed distinctive genetic traits. Wade expands his survey to cover the development of language and the domestication of man's best friend. And while 'race' is often a dirty word in science, one of the book's best chapters shows how racial differences can be marked genetically and why this is important, not least for the treatment of diseases. This is highly recommended for readers interested in how DNA analysis is rewriting the history of mankind. Maps." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Wade presents the science skillfully, with detail and complexity and without compromising clarity." Booklist

"Of particular importance is his demonstration of the value of Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA inheritance for determining the history of human populations over the last five million years." Library Journal

"A meaty, well-written, if occasionally overenthusiastic study, filled with speculation that will leave some uncomfortable and others angry." Kirkus Reviews

"Before the Dawn is by far the best book I have ever read on humanity's deep history. With courage and balance, Wade has pulled together the explosion of discoveries now ongoing in diverse fields of biology and the social sciences on the origin of our species, and he explains a large part of what is necessary to comprehend the human condition." E. O. Wilson

"Into the sultry and turmoiled fray of controversy about human evolution and human nature, Nicholas Wade has delivered an impeccable, fearless, responsible and absorbing account of the real story....Bound to be the gold standard in the field for a very long time." Lionel Tiger, Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University

From acclaimed New York Times science reporter Nicholas Wade, a lively narrative of the much more detailed story that can now be told about human pre-history — the period from 50,000 to 3,500 BCE, when we began to talk, started to wear clothes and then left Africa to populate the rest of the world — due to an explosion in the last five years of findings in a host of fields, including linguistics, archeology, and paleontology and genetics.

Nicholas Wade is a longtime reporter for The New York Times Science Times section, which studies by the Times have shown is the most popular section of the paper around the country. Before writing for the Times, Wade was the deputy editor of Nature magazine in London, one of the world's most prestigious science publications, and a reporter for Science magazine, the world's premier science journal. He is the author or coauthor of four previous books.