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ntation
Mitochondrial Eve
Interpretation
Mitochondrial Eve
Haplogroup Modern humans
In the field of human genetics, Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal "MRCA"
(most recent commonancestor). In other words, she was the woman from whom all living hu
mans today descend, on their mother's side,and through the mothers of those mothers and s
o on, back until all lines converge on one person. Because allmitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is
generally passed from mother to offspring without recombination, all mitochondrialDNA (mtD
NA) in every living person is directly descended from hers by definition. Mitochondrial Eve is t
he femalecounterpart of Y-chromosomal Adam, the patrilineal most recent common ancestor,
although they lived thousandsof years apart.
Each ancestor (of people now living) in the line back to the matrilineal MRCA had female con
temporaries such assisters, female cousins, etc. and some of these female contemporaries
may have descendants living now (with oneor more males in their descendancy line). But no
ne of the female contemporaries of the "Mitochondrial Eve" hasdescendants living now in an
unbroken female line.
Mitochondrial Eve is estimated to have lived around 200,000 years ago,[2] most likely in East
Africa,[3] when Homosapiens sapiens ("anatomically modern humans") were developing as a
population distinct from other human sub-species.
Mitochondrial Eve lived much earlier than the out of Africa migration that is thought to have o
ccurred between95,000 to 45,000 BP.[4] The dating for 'Eve' was a blow to the multiregional h
ypothesis, and a boost to thehypothesis that modern humans originated relatively recently in
Africa and spread from there, replacing more"archaic" human populations such as Neandert
hals. As a result, the latter hypothesis is now the dominant one.
Contents
1 Female and mitochondrial ancestry
2 Common fallacies
2.1 Not the only woman
2.2 Not a contemporary of "Adam"
2.3 Not the most recent ancestor shared by all humans
3 Implications of dating and placement of Eve
4 In popular science
5 See also
6 References
7 Further reading
8 External links
Through random drift or selectionthe female-lineage will trace backto a single female, such a
sMitochondrial Eve
mmonancestors such as Mitochondrial Eve sit at branching points in this tree. Major branche
s are said to define ahaplogroup (e.g. CRS belongs to haplogroup H), and large branches co
ntaining several haplogroups are called"macro-haplogroups".
The mitochondrial clade which Mitochondrial Eve defines is the species Homo sapiens sapie
ns itself, or at least thecurrent population or "chronospecies" as it exists today. In principle, e
arlier Eves can also be defined going beyondthe species, for example one who is ancestral t
o both modern humanity and Neanderthals, or, further back, an"Eve" ancestral to all member
s of genus Homo and chimpanzees in genus Pan. According to current nomenclature,Mitoch
ondrial Eve's haplogroup was within mitochondrial haplogroup L because this macrohaplogroup contains allsurviving human mitochondrial lineages today.
The variation of mitochondrial DNA between different people can be used to estimate the tim
e back to a commonancestor, such as Mitochondrial Eve. This works because, along any par
ticular line of descent, mitochondrial DNAaccumulates mutations at the rate of approximately
one every 3,500 years.[7][8][9] A certain number of these newvariants will survive into modern ti
mes and be identifiable as distinct lineages. At the same time some branches,including even
very old ones, come to an end, when the last family in a distinct branch has no daughters.
Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor for all modern humans. W
henever one of thetwo most ancient branch lines dies out, the MRCA will move to a more rec
ent female ancestor, always the mostrecent mother to have more than one daughter with livin
g maternal line descendants alive today. The number ofmutations that can be found distingui
shing modern people is determined by two criteria: firstly and most obviously,the time back to
her, but secondly and less obviously by the varying rates at which new branches have come i
ntoexistence and old branches have become extinct. By looking at the number of mutations
which have beenaccumulated in different branches of this family tree, and looking at which g
eographical regions have the widestrange of least related branches, the region where Eve liv
ed can be proposed.
The date when Mitochondrial Eve lived is estimated by determining the MRCA of a sample of
mtDNA lineages. In1980, Brown first proposed that modern humans possessed a mitochondr
ial common ancestor that may have livedas recently as 180 kya. In 1987, Cann et al. suggest
ed that mitochondrial Eve may have lived between 140-280 kya.
Common fallacies
Not the only woman
One of the misconceptions of mitochondrial Eve is that since all women alive today descende
d in a direct unbrokenfemale line from her that she was the only woman alive at the time.[10][11]
Nuclear DNA studies indicate that the sizeof the ancient human population never dropped be
low tens of thousands. There may have been many otherwomen alive at Eve's time with desc
endants alive today, but sometime in the past, those lines of descent includedat least one ma
le, who do not pass on their mother's mitochondrial DNA, thereby breaking the line of descen
t. Bycontrast, Eve's lines of descent to each person alive today includes precisely one purely
matrilineal line.[10]
tions:
The Human MRCA. All humans alive today share a surprisingly recent common ancestor, per
haps even within thelast 5,000 years, even for people born on different continents.[13]
The Identical ancestors point. Just a few thousand years before the most recent single ances
tor shared by all livinghumans was the time at which all humans who were then alive either le
ft no descendants alive today or werecommon ancestors to all humans alive today. In other w
ords, "each presentday human has exactly the same set ofgenealogical ancestors" alive at the "Identical ancesto
much more recent thanMitochondrial Eve, but is also likely to have been long before the Ident
ical ancestors point.
Mitochondrial Eve, the most recent female-line common ancestor of all living people.
In popular science
Newsweek reported on Mitochondrial Eve based on the Cann et al. study in January 1988, u
nder a heading of"Scientists Explore a Controversial Theory About Man's Origins". The editio
al audience.
In River Out of Eden, Richard Dawkins discusses human ancestry in the context of a river of
genes and shows thatMitochondrial Eve is one of the many common ancestors we can trace
back to via different gene pathways.
The Discovery Channel produced a documentary entitled The Real Eve (or Where We Came
From in the UnitedKingdom), based on the book Out of Eden by Stephen Oppenheimer.
See also
Archaeogenetics
Macro-haplogroup L (mtDNA)
Evolutionary bio
Haplogroup L0 (mtDNA)
tion
Coalescent theory
Eurasian Adam
Genealogical DNA test
Genetic genealogy
Human evolution
Human mitochondrial DNAhaplogr
oups
L0
L1-6
L1 L2
L3
M
CZ D E G Q
C Z
L4 L5 L6
N
A S
R
B F
I W X Y
R0
HV
H V
pre-JT
JT
J
P
U
K