I am very impressed with that, though I think it gets a few details wrong.
I do not recall a single ‘Adam and Eve it’ moment in what I have understood of human development. I seem to remember the human tribe was reduced to around 30 folk at one point. Perhaps someone more cognisant of the science of this could clarify?
I don’t think the human population was ever that low.
The thing about mitochondrial Eve is that although we are all descended from her, we are not only descended from her. That is, we each have mitochondrial Eve as a common ancestor we also have other matrilinear ancestors. And y chromasome Adam was at least 50,000 years later.
But our most common recent ancestor was probably alive less than five thousand years ago.
I am very impressed with that, though I think it gets a few details wrong.
I do not recall a single ‘Adam and Eve it’ moment in what I have understood of human development. I seem to remember the human tribe was reduced to around 30 folk at one point. Perhaps someone more cognisant of the science of this could clarify?
Douglas,
I don’t think the human population was ever that low.
The thing about mitochondrial Eve is that although we are all descended from her, we are not only descended from her. That is, we each have mitochondrial Eve as a common ancestor we also have other matrilinear ancestors. And y chromasome Adam was at least 50,000 years later.
But our most common recent ancestor was probably alive less than five thousand years ago.
Dawkins covers this point in ‘River Out of Eden.’
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_Out_of_Eden#All_Africa_and_her_progenies