Mark Stoneking

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Mark Stoneking
Born (1956-08-01) 1 August 1956 (age 67)
NationalityAmerican
CitizenshipUnited States
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
Known forMitochondrial Eve
Out of Africa Theory
AwardsSee text
Scientific career
FieldsAnthropology, population genetics
InstitutionsMax Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Doctoral advisorAllan Wilson

Mark Stoneking (born 1 August 1956) is a

modern humans. He, along with his doctoral advisor Allan Wilson and a fellow researcher Rebecca L. Cann, contributed to the "Out of Africa" theory in 1987 by introducing the concept of Mitochondrial Eve, a hypothetical common mother of all living humans based on mitochondrial DNA
.

Education

Stoneking studied an

Postdoctoral Fellow in 1986 at Berkeley and completed it in 1988.[1][2]

Professional career and contributions

In 1989, he joined the Human Genome Center at the

University of Munich
, Germany. In 1999, he got an appointment in the Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, as the Group Leader. He concurrently serves as an Honorary Professor of Biological Anthropology at the University of Leipzig.

He has been an Associate Editor of the

FBI between 1993 and 1998, Defense Science Board Task Force on DNA Technology for Identification of Ancient Remains (1994–1995), Wellcome Trust Bioarchaeology Panel (2001–2005), Steering Committee for National Energy Research Council (NERC) Program on Environmental Factors and the Chronology of Human Evolution and Dispersal (EFCHED) (2001–2006). He is also a member of the Advisory Committee, The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans, Heidelberg Academy of Sciences since 2008; Advisory Board, US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center since 2011; and chair, Scientific Advisory Committee of the Program on Forensics and Ethnicity, Philippine Genome Center, since 2011.[2]

Legacy

Mitochondrial Eve

Main article: Mitochondrial Eve

Stoneking came to prominence both in the academic and media circles with his work on mitochondrial DNA variation among different human populations. He started under the supervision of Allan Wilson and following the pioneering work of his senior graduate student, Rebecca Cann. Cann had collected data from different human populations, including those of

New Guineans. In 1987, after a year of pending, their paper was published in Nature in which their findings indicated that all living humans were descended through a single mother, who lived ~200,000 years ago in Africa.[3] The common hypothetical mother is dubbed Mitochondrial Eve, and the concept directly implies recent African origin of modern humans, hence, the underpinning of the so-called "Recent Out of Africa" theory.[4] In spite of criticisms, and religious antagonisms, even after two decades he still holds this view to be as valid as any scientific theory since a number independent research also corroborates their original human mtDNA phylogenetic tree.[5]

Other aspects of human evolution

Origin of clothing and lice. Stoneking and his team announced an interesting discovery in 2003 on the evolution of
chimpanzee louse revealed that human started to wear clothes some 72,000 years ago (give or take 42,000 years). This could be inferred because the age is when the body lice evolved from the head lice according to the molecular clock.[7]
Human hair. Stoneking has also pioneered the genetic basis of different hair colours and
baldness in men. His team had found that human androgen receptor gene is the major factor associated with baldness in men.[8] They also identified tyrosinase-related protein 1 (TYRP1) as a major determinant of blond hair among the Melanesians of Solomon Islands.[9]
Culture as a factor of human evolution. Stoneking believes that culture has a massive influence on human evolution, and may actually increase the rate of human evolution. He argues that cultural differences are a major signal of selection in genomes, which have been accumulating recently and indicate that humans continue to evolve.[10][11]

Awards and honours

  • National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, 1977–1978, 1979-1981
  • Pennsylvania State University Graduate Fellowship, 1978-1979
  • Ernest Brown Babcock Scholarship, University of California, Berkeley, 1985-1986
  • John Belling Prize in Genetics, University of California, Berkeley, 1990
  • University of Oregon Outstanding Young Alumnus Award, 1990
  • Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science Fellowship, 1995
  • FBI Award for Service to the Forensic DNA Community, 1998
  • Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2000

Filmography

Stoneking has appeared in[12]

  • Becoming Human: First Steps (
    NOVA
    ) 2009
  • Becoming Human: Birth of Humanity (NOVA) 2009
  • Where did we come from? (Nova) 2011

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ Wilkins A (27 January 2012). "The scientists behind Mitochondrial Eve tell us about the "lucky mother" who changed human evolution forever". On the Human. Gawker Media 2013. Retrieved 2013-05-03.
  2. ^ a b "Mark Stoneking: Curriculum Viate". Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Max Planck Gesellschaft. 2 January 2012. Archived from the original on 14 March 2013. Retrieved 2013-05-03.
  3. S2CID 4285418
    .
  4. PMID 1840702
    .
  5. PMID 18578025
    .
  6. doi:10.1038/news030818-7
    . Retrieved 2013-05-04.
  7. PMID 12932325
    .
  8. PMID 19373488
    .
  9. PMID 22556244
    .
  10. ^ Stoneking M (21 December 2009). "Does Culture Prevent or Drive Human Evolution?". On the Human. National Humanities Centre. Archived from the original on 30 June 2013. Retrieved 2013-04-30.
  11. PMID 16581511
    .
  12. ^ IMDb (2013). "Mark Stoneking: Filmography". Internet Movie Database. IMDb.com, Inc. Retrieved 2013-04-30.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mark_Stoneking&oldid=1214254738"