Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode How It All Began.
About Spencer Wells' TED Talk
Geneticist Spencer Wells describes how he uses DNA samples to trace our individual origins going back 2,000 generations.
About Spencer Wells
Written in our DNA, we have a historical document that takes us back in time to the very earliest days of our species.
Spencer Wells is an author, documentary filmmaker, population geneticist and director of the Genographic Project from National Geographic. His fascination with the past has led him to the farthest reaches of the Earth in search of populations whose DNA unlocks the secrets of human history.
Since the Genographic Project began, Wells has collected DNA samples from more than 700,000 people all over the world. He recently published his second book, Deep Ancestry: Inside the Genographic Project.
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