Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent matrilineal common ancestor of all living humans, who lived in East Africa around 140,000 years ago. Tests based on mitochondrial DNA estimate when she lived and how different human lineages are related. She wasn’t the only human at the time, but represents the person from whom all living humans have their mitochondrial DNA.
“Mitochondrial Eve” is the name scientists gave to the woman who is the most recent matrilineal common ancestor of all living humans. This means that all living humans have mitochondrial DNA derived from her. Mitochondrial Eve is thought to be a female who lived in East Africa about 140,000 years ago. The concept is distinct from most recent common ancestor: since the number of ancestors one has increases exponentially as one travels back in time, the most recent shared common ancestor of all mankind lived more recently, probably less than 100,000 years ago . But because of the sexual recombination of nuclear DNA, every living person today has only a fraction of the genetic material shared with that common ancestor.
The tests that let scientists know roughly when Mitochondrial Eve lived are based on mitochondrial DNA, tiny loops of DNA found in the mitrochondria, the powerhouses of our cells. Mitochondrial DNA only engages in genetic recombination with itself, meaning it remains relatively constant from mother to offspring. The only factor causing it to change is mutation, and since the average mutation rate is known, scientists can estimate how different human (or animal) lineages are related to each other and when their most common ancestor is likely to have lived. recent. Estimates tend to be more accurate when the time scale is relatively short, in the hundreds of thousands of years rather than millions of years. Times involving hundreds of millions of years are generally considered to be of low precision.
There are some misconceptions associated with the Mitochondrial Eve concept. This woman wasn’t the only human life at the time — as humans descended incrementally from other hominids, scientists assumed there was no such thing as “Adam and Eve” — no founding pair, and mitochondrial Eve just represents the person that all living humans have had their mitochondrial DNA from. Mitochondrial Eve was one female among tens or hundreds of thousands living in Africa at the time. Other females who lived at the time may have been the common ancestor of all humans living today, but there is at least one male in their ancestral line between then and now. In contrast, Mitochondrial Eve gave birth to a daughter who gave birth to another daughter, through thousands of generations to the present, where mitochondrial DNA is still passed on in daughter-to-daughter format.
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