The Family Tree Chapter Summaries

The documentary “The Family Tree” shows us how everyone on the planet is related on a DNA and molecular level. It shows people from Queens, New York all of the various races and ethnicities that their DNA comprises of to reveal that they share some common origins at some point down their ancestral line. The documentary takes the viewer on a historical journey from early humans as they migrate out of African to regions they are present in today. It also highlights the notion that despite the fact that these small DNA differences that make no real scientific differences, it is given a lot more emphasis in today’s culture. Race as we use it in modern times, is representative of biological markers that separates every person and puts them into separate areas of categorization. This categorizing of people has been done since history has been written. The concept of race was a way to put people into groups and then later hold power over certain groups. Race has been the very thing that has caused wars and provided motive for acts as cruel as murders within history. Groups of people have been punished under this concept that people so heavily relied upon. Race has been an intricate part of history along with greed as a driving force in some of the choices that were made. Humans putting emphasis on race has created a tier system to denote who was better than who based on this made up concept of categorization. The video showed the viewers how great migrations of early humans out of Africa affected the placement of how and where people who claim certain origins actually got there in the first place. These migrations happened in waves, and no two migration waves were the same. It was first thought that the first migration out of Africa was through the Sinai Peninsula, but it may have been through the tip closest to Africa from the Middle East which is Present day Saudi Arabia. It showed how climate and migration patterns help show the placements of early humans. The first migration was shown to be in the Middle East with the last one being in South America, and yet everyone from all over share 98% of the same DNA. The biological markers that society's past and present have clung onto are only caused by less than a few amino acids that create DNA. Five or less tiny molecules and proteins are the components that create skin color. It is those mutations in those five markers that has caused one of the major driving forces behind so much of history. So much in history has happened because of the minute changes that appear in the five DNA markers in each on every person. It is most minute of changes to the DNA that results in insignificant differences in people that has fueled everything from who one …show more content…
Like many other studies, it further proved that the concept of race is a social construct, but unfortunately it is still used around the world. The video shows that everyone came from a scientific Adam and Eve and how it all started in Africa. Even though there are a lot of variations in a few DNA chromosomes around the world, African DNA and its unique variations of DNA show that it is indeed in Africa where all of our ancestral DNA can call