Before the Dawn - Nicholas Wade

This book starts off well.  When he sticks to reporting science research, he presents some interesting current ideas.
- the original homo sapiens population before the spread out of Africa seems to have been about 5000 people living in East Africa near the Red Sea - most of the rest of Africa at that times seems to have been suffering an extreme drought
- the original group that left Africa may have been as small as 150 people
- they seem to have spread east first, along the coast and into India and South-east Asia - from India, some groups spread back west towards Turkey and ultimately Europe
- the original Homo Sapiens would have been dark-skinned as there is strong selection pressure in Africa to have dark pigmentation to protect from degradation of reproductive capability (due to overproduction of vitamin D?)
- based on genetic studies of the differences between body lice and head lice DNA, it can be theorized that humans first started wearing clothes about 10 000 years ago!

- the migration out of Africa would have started about 50 000 years ago - this is also roughly when then last brain mutation appeared in an area affecting speech and language - people where this area is damaged or underdeveloped have trouble both articulating speech and processing incoming messages

- African click languages seem to be the oldest languages in the world - speakers of click languages have the largest accumulated number of DNA mutations in the homo sapiens population, making them the group that would have split off first from the original homo sapiens genetic profile - this suggests click languages may be the closest to the original speech of homo sapiens

- genetically, all lines of homo sapiens are descended from one X chromosome male and one Y chromosome female!!!  Adam and Eve...

Unfortunately, when Wade gets past the earliest years of human development, he starts bringing in a lot of his own speculation and bias.  There is a significant drop off of reference to research and studies once he starts discussing Neanderthal  Homo Sapiens relations, early homo sapiens society and social relations, and intra- group dynamics.  You get the strong sense he is a staunch Republican... war, conflict, social hierarchy and quest for dominance as the natural state of man.
Boring reading - I will not be finishing the book.