In trying to draw the human family tree, therefore, researchers took a special interest in these minute strands of genetic code. Perhaps some of her contemporaries had no surviving children. But it was not forbidden fruit that caused her demise this time around. A word of explanation is in order. The original scientific article that caused all the commotion—“Mitochondrial DNA and Human Evolution”—appeared in the January 1, 1987 issue of Nature, and was authored by Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking, and Allan C. Wilson (see Cann, et al., 1987). 3. A year later, that “speculation” became a major Newsweek production titled, “The Search for Adam and Eve” (Tierney, et al., 1988). Joshua Rapp Learn is a D.C.-based journalist who writes about science, culture and the environment. If the Africans have more differences, then their lineage must be older than all the others. Terms of Use This “Eve gene” is only found in black women.” This claim is “not even wrong” in the sense that genetics just don’t work that way. “My suspicion is that if Eve was similar to her descendants in ecology, then she wasn't roaming all of the oceans, but because both she and her daughters were successful, they eventually expanded out of which ever ocean they were originally based in.”. She, then, would be the only woman out of all the women living in her day to have a daughter in every generation till the present. Second, they compared the groups in their study that were close geographically, and took the age of the common ancestor from estimated times of settlement as indicated by anthropology and archaeology. If humans received mitochondrial DNA only from their mothers, then researchers could “map” a family tree using that information. But this recombination ability in mtDNA makes the entire discussion a moot point. Sperm whales and humans aren’t the only organisms for which researchers have found a mitochondrial Eve. Privacy Statement “In any generation there will be some individuals that will leave no progeny,” Marek Kimmel, a professor of statistical genetics and molecular evolution at Rice University, tells Smithsonian.com. But Alexander is cautious of pointing out a possible link. monthName = new Array(12) Schwartz, Marianne and John Vissing (2002), “Paternal Inheritance of Mitochondrial DNA,” New England Journal of Medicine, 347:576-580, August 22. Awadalla Philip, Adam Eyre-Walker, and John Maynard Smith (1999), “Linkage Disequilibrium and Recombination in Hominid Mitochondrial DNA,” Science, 286:2524-2525, December 24. However, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was thought to be special for two reasons. Second, unlike nuclear DNA, which each person inherits in a jumbled form from both parents, mitochondrial DNA was thought to be passed on only through the mother’s line (more about this later). As scientists have begun to comprehend the fact, and significance, of the “death” of mitochondrial Eve, many have found themselves searching for alternatives that can help them maintain their current beliefs regarding human origins. On rare occasions, mutations are serious enough to do harm. Working from the assumption that mtDNA is passed to the progeny only by the mother, Dr. Cann and her coworkers believed that each new cell should contain copies of only the egg’s mitochondria. By examining 1,600 sperm whales across the world, researchers surmised that this magnificent matriarch arose sometime in the range of 10,000-80,000 years ago. // -->. And, if the mutations affecting mtDNA had indeed occurred at constant rates, then the mtDNA could serve as a molecular clock for timing evolutionary events and reconstructing the evolutionary history of extant species. As one study noted: One year later, researchers made this startling admission: In 2002, a study was conducted that concluded: And now we know that these are more than small “fractional” amounts of mtDNA coming from fathers. Mitochondrial Eve is alleged to have lived in Africa at the beginning of the Upper Pleistocene period (between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago).