Is the ‘Madness’ of Travel in our DNA?
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 09.07.11 | 10:49 AM ET
Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker story about Svante Paabo’s quest to sequence the Neanderthal genome contains a theory about why humans travel and seek the unknown. Kolbert notes that the archeological record shows Neanderthals’ migration stopped “when they reached water or some other significant obstacle,” while “archaic humans” pushed past those barriers, across open water and beyond. Paabo, writes Kolbert, seeks to “identify the basis for this ‘madness’ by comparing Neanderthal and human DNA.”
Paabo explains:
It’s only modern humans who start this thing of venturing out on the ocean where you don’t see land. Part of that is technology, of course; you have to have ships to do it. But there is also, I like to think or say, some madness there. You know? How many people must have sailed out and vanished on the Pacific before you found Easter Island? I mean, it’s ridiculous. And why do you do that? Is it for the glory? For immortality? For curiosity? And now we go to Mars. We never stop.
He adds:
If we one day will know that some freak mutation made the human insanity and exploration thing possible, it will be amazing to think that it was this little inversion on this chromosome that made all this happen and changed the whole ecosystem of the planet and made us dominate everything.
He also tells Kolbert:
We are crazy in some way. What drives it? That I would really like to understand. That would be really, really cool to know.
Fascinating.
Unfortunately, only an abstract of the story is online. There is, however, a Q&A with Kolbert.
Email to friend
Twitter
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Furl
Ma.gnolia
Mixx
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Yahoo! Buzz
Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
Sue Reddel 09.07.11 | 7:16 PM ET
This is great stuff. Thanks for sharing I’ll have to check out the New Yorker article, would love to understand this a bit more.
whitetail hunting 09.19.11 | 1:13 PM ET
Man, I got hooked with the post title. ‘Madness of travel’, id like to believe it is in our dna. i guess everyone would like to do that, even a crippled would go for it.
Deborah-Eve 09.29.11 | 12:56 AM ET
It’s fascinating to think about DNA and travel genes, but this makes me wonder how in some families some members love to travel and others absolutely hate it!? Some people love the thrill of change and others resist with all their might!
Ruby 10.04.11 | 1:40 PM ET
This is a great premise that stimulates thoughts as to what makes us wander. I personally think it
has to do with personality-type and the desire/need/addiction for risk and change. Some folks are stay-at-home, and for them, this site and story is not.