DNA testing has shown that all humans have a common female thread Are we all decended from one female ?

Answer 1

No. Only our mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is all descended from one female who lived in Africa 150,000 years ago. There were many more females living then, it's just that all the mitochondrial DNA descendents of the others have become extinct in the meantime. That's not to say all our mtDNA is identical today. Over time it has mutated in different populations. We use mtDNA for DNA fingerprinting in forensics.

Our nuclear DNA, the DNA that encodes most of our genes, comes from many more females, again all African.

Answer 2

There are two types of DNA - Nuclear, and Mitochondrial.

Nuclear is the 'main' type of DNA, and has all the genes for growth, eye colour, etc etc, and is what people refere to when they talk about DNA, unless otherwise stated. Your Nuclear DNA is a combination of your Mother's and Father's.

Mitonchondrial DNA is contained in the mitonchondria, which are little sacs inside your cells, which make energy. The DNA contained here is passed down only from your mother, so it will be identical to your siblings, and your mother, and her mother, and so on. (Over thousands of years there are slight mutations, so it will not be truely identical over many generations.)

Analysis of Mit. DNA suggests that we are all decended from one woman. It is believed she originated in Africa.

While this does interestingly lend itself to the idea of Eve, it does not in any way proove it. It may simply be that the line of pre-humans which came from that woman were the most successful, and have evolved into modern humans.

Also, it is worth noting that this woman lived far far longer ago than Eve is meant to have (only several thousand years ago), if you take the word of Bible literally! So already this contradicts the Biblical account of the beginings of Man!

Answer 3

Yes, she is known as mitochrondrial Eve. She is known as mitochrondrial Eve because mitochrondrial DNA is inherited from the mother and it's by this we know about her. She lived approx 150,000 years ago in what is know Kenya, Ethiopia or Tanzania. She is the most recent common maternal ancestor. This does not mean to say that there weren't other females around at the time, it just means that they didn't survive. There is also a most recient comman paternal ancestor known as Y chromosomal Adam, since Y chromosomes are only inherited from father to son. He lived between 60,000 and 90,000 years ago.

Like Mitochrondrial Eve, Y-chromosomal Adam is named after the Genesis creation story as a metaphor only, and is not considered to be the first human. In fact, according to the story as told in Genesis, the most recent common ancestor of post-diluvial humanity would be Noah, not Adam.

Answer 4

The woman you're referring to is called Mitochondrial Eve - not to be confused with the mythical Eve of the creation story. What MtEve means is that there exists a woman who is the direct female-line ancestor of all people - ie we can trace all our mitochondrial DNA, which is only inherited through the mother, back to her.

It's a statistical certainty that we will be able to trace our ancestors back to a single woman, who lived at some point in history. However this woman wasn't the only woman alive at that point - and in fact the identity of this woman will change over time.

For more details, see this article:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/mitoeve.html

Answer 5

yes! think about it! Take a population of (breeding) males and females. lets say all females of the first generation give birth. Some of these will be males some will be females of whom a certain fraction, statistcally die or do not breed. So in the first generation even a certain proportion of the female lineage are eliminated. Continue this for just five generations and statistically (I think) all but 5% of the original female lineage is eliminated. So...(!) considering hom sap has been in business for at least 100,000 years, the overwhelming probability is that we are all descended from just one female and that its her DNA that (allowing for random mutations) is present in all our Mitochondrial DNA (when the ovum is fertilised only the nuclear DNA gets combined-the Mitochondria stays genetically intact) Sadly the apple, Adam, the tree of life/knowledge and the Snake got lost along the way!

Answer 6

Mitochondrial DNA is only inherited from mothers which means that all the children of woman, boy or girl, have the same mitochondrial DNA. Therefore, you, your brothers and sisters, your mom, your maternal uncles and aunts, your maternal grandma and her sisters and brothers, your great grandma,... all have the same mitochondrial DNA sequence. It does not mean that you father and your paternal relatives have the same mitochondrial DNA, too. Nobody has really linked all the humans to one parent. At the moment, the research to do so, is way to expensive.

Answer 7

I am an expert on DNA technology and after many years serving with H.M government at Barlinnie university campus in Glasgow I can safely say that we are all linked inextricably to the one female Untill we finish serving our time.

Answer 8

Logic states that since humans can only come from other humans, and the imposibility of two (or more) separate females evolving (if I believed in evolution, which I don't) as humans is nearly overwhelming, I would have to say that there's no other possibility.

And to comment on a previous answer, this does not prove the Bible, it simply gives more affirmation that the authors were on the right track.

Answer 9

The common female threads are linked to four females not one.
Sceintists have assumed that this will lead to one female, which has became quasi fact.
This research supports the theory of a re-population of this planet and is rather more feasable than the biblical storys. (Which are in fact parables, not statements of fact!)

Answer 10

yes. If you're religious then you know her name was eve. If you're not, then you'll still know that through evolution we'd still all be decended from the same true homo sapien. So yeah, all decended from one female.