Is every human being descended from one of seven woman ? DNA research says so; how come ?

Question

I overhard this statement on the radio the other day.

Answer 1

Mitochondrial Eve; The mitochondria are organelles in our cells with their own DNA which is shorter and therefore easier to study than the main, nuclear DNA sequence.
Our mitochondria are all passed on to us from our mothers (in the ovum) so represent a direct line down the female side.
There are 7 main sequences of Mitochodrial DNA found in the human population, which is extrpolated to mean that there were 7 women from which all humans are ultimately descended, (note that these women may not have lived at the same time or in the same area).

Answer 2

In fact, we are all share a single common maternal ancestor, if you go back far enough. This woman is known as "mitochondrial Eve", because it's the DNA in the mitochondria that enable us to date when she lived.

However this doesn't imply, as a previous poster claimed, that she was the only woman alive at the time. It's simply a statistical fact that at some point everyone will share a common ancestor. This can easily be seen if you look at your family tree - you have one mother, but two female grandparents, four female greatgrandparents, and so on - quickly you'll get to the point where you have more ancestors than there were people alive at the time. However the mitochondria are only inherited via the female line - so you only get them from your mother's mother's mother...

It's also important to notice that there wasn't anything special about mitochondrial Eve at the time. She was simply a woman who had a daughter. But she was the most recent common female-line ancestor of all people living today.

For a great explanation of what Mitochondrial Eve really means, look here: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/mitoeve.html

Answer 3

Well, it's a little simplistic, but yeah, basically.

Think about how many generations are between us and 250,000 years ago, or even 20,000 years ago. Basically what that statement of one-of-seven means is that there are seven (what we would call human) women who we knew bore children long ago.

Anyway, the children of those seven women had kids of their own, and so on and so forth. And there have been so many generations since then that there has been interbreeding (though it's been so long that it doesn't really count). And so we can trace all humans to having at least some mitochondrial DNA from those seven women.

There were other women around, of course, but their lines have died off.

Answer 4

Its like a huge family tree - as simple as that. However, the women identified to date relate to a limited amount of research it is highly likely that other women will be found as more research around the world uncovers additional info and new dna.

Answer 5

We are all descended from one woman - Eve.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) indicates that all women have descended from a single woman, called mitochondrial Eve. This does not prove that she was the only woman alive at the time, but is consistent with it. High mutation rates indicate that this ancestor lived at about the time of the biblical Eve as well.

Creationists have enthusiastically welcomed the ‘mitochondrial Eve’ hypothesis (i.e. that all modern humans can be traced back to one woman) because it clearly supports biblical history and contradicts evolutionary scenarios. A few years ago I reviewed the status of mitochondrial Eve research, showing that the identification of mitochondrial Eve with biblical Eve was becoming stronger as more evidence on measured mutation rates accumulated.

http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4472/

Answer 6

absolute rubbish my dear watson.are these bunch of idiots so small minded as to think only a few humans were ever created at the same time.plus the fact,i dont go along with the stupid monkey theory.never ceases to amaze me.

Answer 7

They traced it back using mitochondrial DNA. (I think)

Answer 8

every1's connected they were the first women and they had kids then their kids had kids then their kids had kids and so on.

i rekon maybe we're all related just very very distantly

Answer 9

Really?!

I haven't heard that before...

I will definitely try to find out more on that. If you can get more information please let us know.

Thank you for passing that on!