RufusAtticus

There are also other women and men who contributed other small portions of their genomes to the entire human race.

Peez

I believe that you have it, but note the clarification that Rufus Atticus gave above. Thus you might say:Yet another clarification that is worth making: even though we have all inherited mtDNA from one woman, your mtDNA is probably different from mine. Note that in the original example, RufusAtticus stated:(my emphasis) Although everybody's mtDNA has been inherited from one source, there have been mutations along the way. So, in one sense "a woman contributed genetic material to (your) DNA that (you) share with everyone else" but this DNA does not have exactly the same sequence in each person.

Peez

CX

My last question and than I'll let this drop (maybe). Does this mean that everyone alive today is related "by blood" so to speak to this "mitochondrial Eve"?

RufusAtticus

Yes.

CX

But it is not the case that she is at the top of a giant tree propigating downware to the present. I.E. she is not the single ancestor from that generation of all living people.


(Damn this stuff is hard to get your mind around. I'm going back to B,C&H to study ancient manuscripts.)

Nic Tamzek

Heh, I just visited the Bible forum briefly. You guys are the hardcore ones, the first thread I checked had someone translating Greek or aramaic or something and making apparently novel textual connections, or something. The only language over here is DNA...

CX

Hardcore? No. Just very very sick. I figured everyone took 3 semesters of post undergraduate Koine Greek just for kicks. Next you're going to tell me you don't own a copy of the 27th edition of Nestle-Aland's Novum Testamentum Graece

RufusAtticus

Naw. I took two semesters of Classical Sanskrit and two semesters of Classical Greek for kicks.

theyeti

She is, but she is only at the top of one of a huge number of lineages, or branching trees if you will. Think of it this way: Eve had daughters, who had daughters, who had daughters, etc....who eventually had sons and daughters that include everyone alive today. But Eve had a husband, and her daughters had husbands, etc. These husbands could have (and almost certainly did) contribute DNA in from sources only distantly related to Eve. And of course those husbands had mothers, who are also your direct female ancestors. So while Eve is one of your direct female ancestors, she's not the only one. She just happens to be one of your ancestors who's on the direct maternal line, tracing back your ancestry only through females. If you include a male ancestor somewhere, you're off on a different lineage, one which Eve may not be a part of at all. (Not to confuse things further, but Eve is most likely your direct ancestor from many different lineages, but almost certainly not all of them.) And the only thing that makes her different than her mother or one of her daughters is that she's the most recent person for whom everyone's direct maternal line converges. If everyone's mitochondrial DNA came from one of her daughters (as opposed to two or more) then that daughter would be called mitochondrial Eve.

That's my understanding of it anyway. If I've messed anything up, I'd appreciate it if Rufus or Peez would correct me.

theyeti

Baloo

Err... perhaps this could use an edit, for clarity's sake?