Abstract
Our understanding of the chronology of human evolution relies on " the molecular clock " provided by the regular accumulation of substitutions over an evolutionary lineage. In this lecture, we discussed how this evolutionary clock is calculated, dissecting the steps involved. We then discussed recent analyses of human pedigrees that have challenged our understanding of the chronology of the human lineage. As we pointed out, dating evolutionary events does not require " a mutation rate ", but a precise characterization of how mutations accumulate during development in men and women - knowledge that remains incomplete to date.
