Eve, mitochondrial

The mitochondrial "Eve" hypothesis naturally made big headlines, was featured on the cover of such magazines as Time and Newsweek, and also quite naturally was... 

As for the date of the lifetime of "mitochondrial Eve," there have been various estimates between the extremes of about 60 to 400Ka based on several different methods of mtDNA analysis. Some best estimates put the life of "mitochondrial Eve" at about 130 to 140Ka, "the date of origin of modern humans." (21) The uncertainties in these several estimates may be narrowed by considering data from other fields of study, and from a view of the overall evolutionary scenario which emerges upon consideration of all the information at our disposal, including my own hypotheses of the influence of psychedelics on the overall process, using all these sources, a reasonably constrained sequence of events with fairly accurate dates becomes possi ble. 

Mitochondrial Eve the female ancestor of all modern humans in Africa. 

The observation that all of our mitochondria are inherited from our mothers led Dr. A. Wilson to study the mitochondrial DNA of thousands of women around the world. He thought that by looking for similarities and differences in the mitochondrial DNA he would be able to identify a "Mitochondrial Eve"— the mother of aU humanity. He didn t really think that he could identify a single woman who would have lived tens of thousands of years ago. But he hoped to determine the location... 

It is sometimes assumed that mitochondrial Eve was an especially successful individual, probably one with many children. However, it should be clear from the illustration that she was just lucky, and may have had no more than two daughters. (She must have had at least two, because if she had just one then that one would be mitochondrial Eve herself). In the example, the descendants of the ancestor labeled B initially multiplied faster than any other, constituting the majority of all descendants at generation 10, so B seemed a likely candidate to become mitochondrial Eve, but in fact her line disappeared in generation 19, and by generation 21 only descendants of C were left. 

Moreover, mitochondrial Eve does not remain always the same person. If the left-hand tree represents the descent from a group of 20 women, then the... 

The title of mitochondrial Eve thus advances, and a woman living today or one of her descendants will one day be the mitochondrial Eve for our descendants. She is impossible to identify today, but she must exist. It follows, then, that mitochondrial Eve was not a particularly special person, and did not live at a special moment in human evolution. 

Problem 10.2 The mitochondrial Eve or who did you say was your great-great-uncle ... 

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