The 10,000 Year Explosion - How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution
| Author | Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending |
|---|---|
| Published | 2009 |
| Format | Book |
TL;DR — Cochran and Harpending argue that human evolution sped up, not stopped, after agriculture, and that recent genetic change helped shape history.
Published by Basic Books in 2009. Gregory Cochran, a physicist turned evolutionary theorist, and Henry Harpending, an anthropologist at the University of Utah, challenge the idea that human biological evolution stopped with the emergence of modern humans 40,000–50,000 years ago.
They argue that larger populations and the new environments created by farming accelerated natural selection over the last 10,000 years, and use examples such as lactose tolerance, disease resistance and skin colour. They also argue that interbreeding with Neanderthals contributed useful genes, that such genetic change helped drive historical events like the Indo-European expansion, and — most controversially — that selection explains high average test scores among Ashkenazi Jews.
What it is: a popular-science book by two credentialed researchers; several of its arguments were provocative when published and the Ashkenazi chapter in particular remains disputed. This copy is of an in-print book.
Where this came from
- A copy saved in October 2026.
303 pages. A PDF copy is held in Kyle’s private archive; it is not linked or shared here.