What Does Mitochondrial Eve Force Us to Reconsider?
Mitochondrial DNA study presents powerful evidence and convincing reasoning favoring a single human ancestress (traced entirely through female links) and also providing an approximate date for her. In the absence of humans not descended from Mitochondrial Eve, we must hypothesize a complete extinction of all other hominids in both Africa and Eurasia. Given the recent date of Eve, most of the fossils formerly thought to belong to populations ancestral to modern humans simply belonged to lines of descent without modern issue. The date, based on assumptions about the statistical regularity of genetic mutation in DNA, is therefore where the current action is. Remember that all African populations were also replaced by the “children of Eve.” Despite the lingering application of the older name “Out of Africa” and the relevance of Eve in explaining the population of Eurasia, the claims made for Eve include ALL modern humans, not merely those outside Africa.
