2/5 - Ancestor

What is “ancestor?” Genealogical ancestry is not genetic ancestry, and it works in surprising ways. Universal ancestors of all humans lived just a few thousand years ago, and most of our ancestors are “genetic ghosts” that leave us no DNA.

The Genealogical Adam and Eve invites a conversation about ancestry: from Adam and Eve to evolution, from race to kinship, from sacred to natural history. To encourage this conversation, we designed a series of artifacts, each building on one of the five parts of the book: fracture, ancestor, human, mystery, and crossroad.

Genetic ghosts. Forgotten histories. The illusion of race. The science of ancestry is interesting, meaningful, and non-intuitive. Each piece is visually interesting, but also includes several layers of meaning.

These artifacts are an opportunity to explore ancestry yourself, but also to invite others into the conversation too.