Re: When did "Eve" live??
Katrina Worley (kworley@csus.edu)
Tue, 24 Dec 1996 14:25:54 -0800
In article <59mea6$ccj@ccshst05.cs.uoguelph.ca>, kmacke00@uoguelph.ca
(Kevin Mackenzie) wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> A few years ago I remember hearing about a study (out of California I
> think) in which the researchers determined (with reasonable confidence)
> that all modern Homo sapiens have one common maternal ancestor. This was
> based on a genetic study. Does anyone know the authors or title of any
> publications on this study? Did the researchers estimate when this "Eve"
> lived and does anyone know of a similar genetic study performed for male
> ancestors?
>
> Thanks in advance
> Kevin.
This is the "mitochondrial Eve" hypothesis. Try doing a word search in
any university library periodicals database on "mitochondrial Eve", or on
"mitochondrial DNA". You should find several papers on the subject.
"Human Evolution: An Illustrated Introduction" by Roger Lewin (3rd
edition), published in 1993 by Blackwell Scientific Publications has a
chapter on the subject which gives a history of the theory and the
resulting controversies. I would imagine that most of the more recent
physical anthro. textbooks would at least mention the theory (the flurry
of papers on the subject seems to have peaked around 1992-3). I know that
in my physical anthropology seminar (1994), we had no problem finding info
on the subject.
Katrina
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