A revolution is underway in archaeology. For the first time the molecular record of past life, emtombed for millennia in archaeological and geological material, has become widely accessible to science. Miraculous-seeming techniques now allow ancient remains to speak volumes about a past we thought lost. This description may be from another edition of this product.
This is an excellent discussion of what new research on DNA and RNA have contributed to the writing of history and to understanding how we got where we are. The author gives the reader a good, concise introduction to the subject and its history, before introducing some of the remarkable finds that the technique has contributed. Most readers interested in science should be able to understand the information. I found the...
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"Molecule Hunt" is a history of the technology of using DNA and other once-living substances to trace the distant past of man and animals. When I went to school archeology seemed to be the (boring!) study of old pieces of pottery; it's a lot more complex and interesting now. The movie "Jurassic Park" popularized the potential of DNA investigation. "Molecule Hunt" is crammed with the facts and speculations that have emerged...
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To those complaining about life's ups and downs, read this for consolation. Even the Stock Market doesn't achieve the rises and falls exhibited by the field of archaeology. Except the focus here is on ideas, not finance. Jones describes the tumultuous history of understanding human evolution during the past century. From a few bones and broken pottery, archaeology tried to unravel the mysteries of our past. The implementation...
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The Molecule Hunt: Archaeology and the Search for Ancient DNA written by Martin Jones is a book about modern molecular archaeology and what it entails.This book is a fascinating and absorbing story of scientific inquiry. Keeping in mind that what is preserved for the scientist is in fosilized form and what DNA samples that they do get need specialized equipment and new field methods for getting the samples, essentially changing...
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The Molecule Hunt: Archaeology And The Search For Ancient DNA by Martin Jones (the first to hold the George Pitt-Rivers Professorship of Archaeological Science, Cambridge University, and Chairman of the Ancient Biomolecules Initiative program) is a serious, authoritative, highly accessible introduction for the non-specialist general reader to the fascinating scientific revelations that ancient proteins and remnants of DNA...
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