April 15, 2017
Science journalist Bojs seeks to personalize the story of human migration and the history of habitation in Europe by providing an account of her own family. Since Bojs is Swedish, there are many Scandinavian personal and place names that U.S. readers may find unfamiliar; they will want to have a map handy as she describes many parts of Europe and beyond. The focus is on northern Europe, but the author does mention other regions, including Africa and China when relevant, particularly when addressing the development of early technologies such as sailing, pottery, and music. She also discusses humans' early relationships with animals (e.g., dogs, cats, and horses). Although the various scientists Bojs interviews often disagree about the importance of archaeology vs. genetics, she manages to weave the competing fields into a clear narrative of the history of early Europeans. She is also highly aware of the potential for such information to be used to make discriminatory claims about European superiority and faces that challenge head-on. VERDICT Overall, a thoughtful and personal story for readers with an interest in early European history, genealogy, or archaeology.--Cate Hirschbiel, Iwasaki Lib., Emerson Coll., Boston
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
Starred review from April 1, 2017
Swedish science journalist Bojs gamely asserts the gene in genealogy. She intertwines the development of early human beings in Europe with her own family history in a narrative as precisely and splendidly formed as the majestically wound DNA molecule. And aptly so, given that DNA technology provides a remarkable tool in clarifying ancestry and antiquity. Samples of it in ancient skeletons can be analyzed. DNA from body lice can help calculate the age of clothing. Even microscopic deposits in dental tartar can be scrutinized. Everyone alive now has a common foremother, Mitochondrial Eve. Along with her male counterpart, Y-Chromosomal Adam, both dwelt in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Fast-forward many millennia. The population of Europe becomes shaped by three major migrations: Ice Age hunters were first on the scene, followed by farmers arriving from the Middle East, then pastoralists from the eastern steppes toting Indo-European languages. Beyond molecular biology, Bojs utilizes many disciplines to trace the progress and movement of Europeans, including anthropology, archaeology, botany, history, linguistics, and paleontology. Discussions of Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons, the earliest cooking, ancient beermaking, prehistoric graves, animal domestication, changes in climate and sea levels, Vikings, and the real paleo diet (which included insects and heaps of honey) all make an appearance. Formidable and fascinating reading.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)
April 15, 2017
A science journalist searches deep for roots and finds them in the deepest helixes of her genetic code."The fact is that my forebears--in the direct maternal line--were among the anatomically modern, musical and artistic humans who first colonized Europe." That claim is laden with import. Swedish science journalist and editor Bojs has been following advances in DNA research for decades, work that, she writes, has led to interviewing some 70 scientists and visiting 10 countries. As she recounts in this well-written work of popular science, those travels have involved not just Bojs as an entity, but also her genetic inheritance: amino acids that led to the now-submerged Dogger Bank, off the coast of England; the far-flung Arctic tribes marked by the haplogroup U4; and to scattered places in the Balkans and Greece, "along the routes taken by Europe's first farmers on their way northwards toward Central Europe." Such researches lead to big-picture questions that mirror work that has been done in the prehistory of North America: for instance, as Bojs writes, were immigrants responsible for the spread of farming into what is now Scandinavia, "or was the technology itself simply adapted by local hunting populations?" As she acknowledges, although genetic studies yield insight into such matters as the role of disease in early human populations, they are also fraught with possibilities for a racialized view of the human past, whence the whole business of Aryan purity and the interest of some totalitarian regimes in establishing the primacy of favored genotypes and phenotypes. Though she begins with that proud claim of descent from modern humans, Bojs closes with darker discoveries of mental illness in her lineage. Though she reckons herself fairly lucky in the genetic lottery, she argues that genes are not "selfish," in Richard Dawkins' sense, but two-faced: "what is good or bad depends on the combination and the context." A book to consult before swabbing, full of insight into the uses and abuses of genetics.
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