The Genographic Project

The Friends of the Hanley Library will present a lecture on “The Genographic Project” on Thursday, Feb. 19, at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.

The presentation by Isabelle Champlin, assistant professor of anthropology and director of the international studies program at Pitt-Bradford, will take place at 7 p.m. in the Mukaiyama University Room of the Frame-Westerberg Commons.

Champlin will review two books by Dr. Spencer Wells, one of which led to the television documentary “The Journey of Man,” which explains how comparisons of genetic markers from the DNA in blood samples from different populations all over the world tell the story of past human migrations.

The Genographic Project, begun in 2005, is a research project being undertaken by Wells, a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence who is using cutting-edge genetic technology to unravel the migrations of man beginning 60,000 years ago. It is the largest genetic survey of the human species ever taken, and the goals, methods and results are described in Wells’ 2007 book, “Deep Ancestry.”