Origin

A Genetic History of the Americas

By: Jennifer Raff

Narrated by: Tanis Parenteau, Jennifer Raff - Interview, Yvonne Russo - Interview

Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

From celebrated anthropologist Jennifer Raff comes the untold story - and fascinating mystery - of how humans migrated to the Americas.

Origin is the story of who the first peoples in the Americas were, how and why they made the crossing, how they dispersed south, and how they lived based on a new and powerful kind of evidence: their complete genomes. Origin provides an overview of these new histories throughout North and South America, and a glimpse into how the tools of genetics reveal details about human history and evolution.

Twenty thousand years ago, people crossed a great land bridge from Siberia into Western Alaska and then dispersed southward into what is now called the Americas. Until we venture out to other worlds, this remains the last time our species has populated an entirely new place, and this event has been a subject of deep fascination and controversy. No written records - and scant archaeological evidence - exist to tell us what happened or how it took place. Many different models have been proposed to explain how the Americas were peopled and what happened in the thousands of years that followed.

A study of both past and present, Origin explores how genetics is currently being used to construct narratives that profoundly impact Indigenous peoples of the Americas. It serves as a primer for anyone interested in how genetics has become entangled with identity in the way that society addresses the question "Who is indigenous?"

©2022 Jennifer Raff (P)2022 Twelve

Critic reviews

"Social and genetic history cannot be disentangled. ORIGIN also highlights the colonizers’ evolving cultural myths that shape and are shaped by their science. This is a valuable read for consumers of popular genetics who are not aware how much science is built on colonial theft, and how Indigenous peoples push back to improve science." (Dr. Kim TallBear (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate), professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta, Canadian research chair in Indigenous peoples, technoscience, and society, and author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science)

"Rarely does a book combine the scientific, the compassionate, and the respectful when engaging with genomes, histories, and the movement of peoples. Even more rarely does a non-Indigenous scientist listen to - and learn from - Indigenous interlocutors, past and present. Jennifer Raff’s ORIGIN deftly weaves a critical narrative of discoveries, biases, achievements, faults, and possibilities, offering an integrative, caring, and scientifically rigorous approach to thinking with and about the histories of the First Peoples of the Americas. Filled with complex but accessible archeological, historical, and genomic analyses presented in the context of honest and often difficult narratives, ORIGIN is a necessary and elegant text." (Agustín Fuentes, professor of anthropology at Princeton University and author of Why We Believe)

"Ancient DNA, extracted from bones thousands upon thousands of years old, has the potential to rewrite the story of the human past. In ORIGIN, Jennifer Raff expertly explains the complicated science behind it, how it can tell us who the first inhabitants of the Americas really were, and how they got there. ORIGIN balances its cutting-edge command of the science and its interpretation with a deep commitment to the ethical implications of this work. The result is a lively, learned, and wonderfully told guide to a fascinating topic." (Patrick Wyman, author of The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years That Shook the World and host of Tides of History)

Interesting topic. Great for challenging outdated theories.

Ignore the reviews claiming woke politics- anyone curious about origin theory, genetics, and anthropology (and interested in what is nothing short of a paradigm shift in this field) will like this book. Those reviews putting “politics” on an evidence-based scientific field need to go holler in their echo chamber. So many of the world’s most profound shifts in scientific examination fought these types of narratives. That said, this book might be better read vs audible. The narrator is wanting.

good book, horrible narration

The book provides an overview of what genetic archeology teaches us on the first people in the Americas with some insights on the work of researchers.

The narration is highly unpleasant, sometimes. separating. every. word. with. a. long. pause. making it hard to listen.

Loved this book

This book is informative not only for archaeologist but also for anyone who wants to learn.

Interesting subject but flaws in both the performance and the writing

The writer, quite justifiably, is offended with the way archaeologist in anthropologist have treated native American people and cultures. She talks at some length about the various times this is occurred. This is an incredibly important subject, no question, and must be examined so that it is not repeated. But I got tired of getting hit over the head with it as I listened to this book.

The reader has a bit of a harsh voice, but even more important she missed pronounced both anthropologists’ names and the names of Alaska places. For those of us who live in Alaska and have studied anthropology, this grated.

Fascinating!

Information is new, relevant, and we’ll presented. Appreciate that both sides of a rich debate are laid out, and that the author is clear about what we know, and what we don’t. We’ll done!

Dr. Raff is a gifted writer

What impressed me most about this book, beyond the fascinating information, were the narrative passages where she mused about how things might have happened. They were so detailed and vivid, it made me think that Dr. Raff would make an excellent fiction writer if she ever wants a second career.

It is great to see someone in the scientific community own up to the way scientists have sometimes treated subjects of research as inhuman data sources. Dr. Raff weaves in ideas about how people should be treated without ever getting preachy or diverging far from the main point. Very well done.

might be a better read than a listen

fascinating reframing of the subject, interesting companion to 1491 on the same theme. author's poor ear for non-English pronunciation is distracting and undercuts her credibility, but i appreciated her obsession with the ethics of science intersecting with indigenous communities. anyone who has attempted to hike across arctic tundra will immediately see the logic of focusing on the sea coast route out of Asia

Interesting

The book brought several thoughts and different ideas to consider. I liked the information that was provided.

A story well told

Great narrator voice, great narrative very evocative. if you are interested in the emerging story of how the first humans came across a vast unpeopled land and the story of the “detectives” uncovering this story , then this is a must read. The interview with the author at the end was really appreciated because it brought in the latest research which is just fascinating. Spoiler alert-throw out everything you think you know about when people first arrived to South and North America and how they got here.

Very comprehensive !

This book is a wonderfully detailed and well explained for the layperson look at the peopling of the Americas through the lens of genetics. The author is very comprehensive and scrupulously honest in her approach. There is a coda at the end that includes the footprints found in New Mexico, which is not available in the printed version.