Spencer Wells Quotes

Obviously I descend from Africa.

I, too, am convinced that our ancestors came from Africa.

Living in your genome is the history of our species.

Everyone is related to Africa; everyone comes from Africa. We are all distant relatives.

From a genomic perspective, we are all Africans.

Most of the ancestors that I can trace were born here in the United States of America. And then it goes back to slavery. And I'm sure my ancestors go all the way back to Africa, but I feel more of an affinity for America than I do for Africa. I'm a black man in America.

We all evolved out of the same three or four groups in Africa, as black Africans.

When we look for the origins of all humanity today, let's not just look at Europe, because I think Africa was the cradle, the crucible that created us as Homo sapiens.

So much of the physical world has been explored. But the deluge of data I get to investigate really lets me chart new territory. Genetic data from people living today forms an archaeological record of what happened to their ancestors 10,000 years ago.

Humankind has mainly evolved in Africa, and we only left Africa very, very late in our evolutionary path. This means that there is very little genetic diversity among those who left Africa and very much genetic diversity among those who stayed.

Imagine thousands and thousands of years ago, when the human race was born in Africa, if we'd not allowed them to get out of Africa then we wouldn't exist.

Man developed in Africa. He has not continued to do so there.

We hope to find more pieces of the puzzle which will shed light on the connection between this upright, walking ape, our early ancestor, and modern man.

When we say Afro American, we include everyone in the Western Hemisphere of African descent. South America is America. Central America is America. South America has many people in it of African descent.

So for everybody who allows themselves to be separated from me because I said 'African' instead of 'Nubian' or 'Black' or 'Kemet' or 'original' or 'Israelite,' don't be so foolish. I say 'African' because the continent of Africa is the land from which we all originate. It is the word that we are most familiar with right now.

I find a tremendous receptivity among the public for the subject matter of, 'Where did we come from and how did we get here?' People are thirsty and hungry for information on our origins. I feel a responsibility as a major figure in the area... to convey to the public the knowledge of human origins in a way that is understandable to them.

It is hard for the ape to believe he descended from man.

The election of Senator Barack Obama brought jubilation across Africa, where millions celebrated him as 'one of their own.'

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

The first light of human consciousness and the world's first civilizations were in Africa.

I am proud of my black roots and of the black blood that runs in my veins.

According to the now almost universally accepted theory, all the races of mankind had a common origin.

I want some fact-based evidence about where we came from. Things we consider mysterious need not be attributed to a deity.

Knowing that we are primates, I think, is a fascinating discovery, and a very interesting and rather cheering one.

We are all descendants of Adam, and we are all products of racial miscegenation.