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12/19/08(Fri)18:28 No.1487918Mitochondrial
Eve is sometimes referred to as African Eve, an ancestor who has been
hypothesized on the grounds of fossil as well as DNA evidence.
According to the most common interpretation of the mitochondrial DNA
data, the titles belong to the same hypothetical woman. Family trees
(or "phylogenies") constructed on the basis of mitochondrial DNA
comparisons show that the living humans whose mitochondrial lineages
branched earliest from the tree are indigenous Africans, whereas the
lineages of indigenous peoples on other continents all branch off from
African lines. Researchers therefore reason that all living humans
descend from Africans, some of whom migrated out of Africa to populate
the rest of the world. If the mitochondrial analysis is correct, then
because mitochondrial Eve represents the root of the mitochondrial
family tree, she must have predated the exodus and lived in Africa.
Therefore many researchers take the mitochondrial evidence as support
for the "single-origin" or Out-of-Africa model. |
