In 2009 Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending used their merits as professors of anthropology at the University of Utah to publish a book detailing the recent history of the evolution. The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution argues that human evolution accelerated from civilization due to new selective pressures and an increased sample size for mutations. Although Cochran and Harpending use past selective advantages such as lactose tolerance or language abilities, they have no evidence of current selective advantages that are changing in the human genome. Although the book is very convincing that evolution was occurring before civilization and the first civilized humans, it lacks evidence on evolution in the present day. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay The authors begin the book with an assessment of the genome of primitive peoples. The authors explain: “Modern humans had developed advanced linguistic abilities and were able to talk Neanderthals to death.”(26). This means that people were evolving until the beginning of civilization because language made civilization possible. Also supporting the fact that language was a genetic rather than cultural advantage was the fact that this quote implies that humans could speak while Neanderthals could not, which could only mean that we had a genetic advantage over Neanderthals. Changes were also evident in the fossil record: “The archaeological record of the Upper Paleolithic… is qualitatively different from anything that came before” (30). This means that humans were not only evolving subtle features like language, but also skeletal changes that would make us distinct from Neanderthals. However, what kicked off civilization must have been changes in the characteristics of human interactions to bring together people who years earlier would have been competing tribes. The authors also have evidence for this when they state, “People…behaved differently than their ancestors 20,000 years earlier” (30). The changes taking place have almost certainly been made to the genome because it is extremely difficult to change the characteristics of each clan without a culture behind it. Using evidence of changes in body and acting, the authors effectively argue that humans were evolving to the point of civilization. However, the book shows that evolution did not stop there. Changes in the human genome signal selective pressure changes that have been expressed in the human genome. The book continues: “Lactose-tolerant Europeans carry a particular mutation that is only a few thousand years old” (22). This means that the authors demonstrate that humans transitioned to a dairy-based diet due to early herding and domestication. The authors also demonstrate that hunter-gatherers did not have this mutation by explaining that “Hunter-gatherers…stop producing lactose (an enzyme that digests lactose) in childhood” (77). Making a genetic distinction between hunter-gatherers and early civilized peoples, there is sufficient evidence that evolution continued when nomadic tribes abandoned spears and took up agriculture. The authors also highlight the selective pressures due to agriculture by stating that “agriculture has reshaped human society…changes have resulted in…nutrition and infectious diseases” (85). Since agriculture allowed people to stay in the.