Talk:Mitochondrial Eve

Contradiction in the article

I find the notion of a mitochondrial Eve very strange. Is it really likely that we are all descended from a very small human population of a few thousands people somewhere in Africa? Remember that at the same time, there were Neandertalians and Denosovians (and other species too?) in Eurasia and we carry some of their genes. Does it mean we are descended from Neandertalian males exclusively? The article is contradictory: "Mitochondrial Eve is named after mitochondria and the biblical Eve.[2] Unlike her biblical namesake, she was not the only living human female of her time. However, her female contemporaries, excluding her mother, may have produced direct unbroken female lines only to portions of the present day human population." This is not possible. Any present day human can have only and only one matrilinear great-great-great...... great-grand mother in a given generation. There can be no such thing as a female contemporary of Eve being the direct matrilinear ancestor of anyone alive. Of course, many female contemporaries of Eve might be our great-great... grand-mothers, but not in a direct matrilinear way. Not that I am convinced that Eve existed. Let's imagine some Neandertalian woman was adopted into a Sapiens family 50 000 ears ago (I leave it to you to imagine a violent abduction or a romantic dalliance). Let's imagine this woman is our matrilinear great-great-great... grandmother. Is there a scientific way to tell out the new polymorphisms she brought into our line from new mutations appeared randomly? You have to demonstrate this before you can argue that Eve existed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kiskrof (talk • contribs) 08:45, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

I do agree that " There can be no such thing as a female contemporary of Eve being the direct matrilinear ancestor of anyone alive." I will look at that wording.

The best sources all insist the evidence does show we descend from a small population, so we have to report that, based on the way Wikipedia works.

But you are right to point out that in recent years, it has also been shown that the small population who were our main ancestors also seem to have interbred with some other small populations, very distantly related, such as Neanderthals. But how should that affect what we write in this specific article?

If I understand correctly you are proposing that we are not really sure that the most recent common ancestor of all human mitochondrial lines, might actually have been a person from one of those other populations, such as the Neaderthals. I am not sure about that, but I am also not sure whether it is relevant to any thing in the article? It would indeed be interesting to know if any published source has ever looked into that question, but I am not sure it would make the article wrong.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:53, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

by definition, mt-Eve's mother was a "female contemporary of Eve being the direct matrilinear ancestor of [everyone] alive", just not the most recent one. --dab (𒁳) 09:08, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

Not the Biblical Eve

I believe this section was written to prove that Mitochondrial Eve is not the same person referenced in religious texts. I question the need for this section, but more importantly, I call for citations. Until equipped with citations, this section is more of a dogmatic rant than a scientific encyclopedia.

• The page suggests that Mitochondrial Eve is not a "fixed" individual. Perhaps we have not found the year/generation/genetic sequence of Mitochondrial Eve, but we are precisely searching for a "fixed" person: the most recent common ancestor. By definition, we are not looking for her mom, her sister, or someone living in her neighborhood; we are looking for her. In terms of population genetics, you cannot be more of a "fixed individual" than this.
• While it is safe to assume that Mitochondrial Eve had a mother based on the evidence that we all have mothers, I think specific cited evidence is warranted for such a special case as Mitochondrial Eve.
• If we have genetic evidence that indicates that Mitochondrial Eve's contemporaries had similar mitochondrial DNA, please cite. Short of this, please cite fossil evidence indicating a larger human population contemporary to Mitochondrial Eve.
• Suggest rephrasing the last point to be more scientific: Although the estimated timelines of Mitochondrial Eve and Y-Chromosomal Adam overlap, there is no genetic evidence to indicate that they were alive at the same time or knew each other. Given the large time ranges and large geographies involved, their chance meeting would be extremely improbable.

For clarity, I do not argue here that Mitochondrial Eve has any relation with the Eve of religious texts. I only call for citations and rephrasing in order to improve the scientific basis of Wikipedia and shed dogmatic rants. Cheddar3210 (talk) 09:18, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

First, just as a standard procedure, I will move this new section to the bottom of the page rather than the top.

The article has many citations and those citations show clearly that Mitochondrial eve is defined to mean something handy for scientists, and not with reference to anything else such as these eves being the first woman (not even in science, let alone the Bible). That makes it redundant to ask for a source which specifically says something is NOT true, that no source would ever lead you to think in the first place?

The fact that the mitochondrial eve will in fact change over generations stems from the definition itself, because this person is defined in terms of mitochondrial lines in existence on the day we are talking, and every day there are lines going extinct. Concerning the last two bullets perhaps they need separate discussion:

• Does the article currently say that "Mitochondrial Eve's contemporaries had similar mitochondrial DNA"? Maybe we indeed need to look at that, but please cite the part of the article for discussion here.
• Similarly, concerning the proposed rewording about the overlap with "Y Adam" can you post the text you want to change?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:26, 29 September 2016 (UTC)

All the "dumbed down" explanations in this article are here due to our decade-long experience that people will make well-intended but uninformed edits unless we really really go out of our way to explain it so everyone can understand. It's not usual to go so far in Wikipedia articles on technical topics, but this page has really proven to be a magnet for such edits.

Andrew's explanations are correct of course. I seriously do not know how we could make the concept any clearer to avoid being forced to give personalised explanations on talk as well. Perhaps a FAQ page we can point to?

Perhaps using really drastic examples?

"If tomorrow, the entire human population would be wiped out, with the only exception of you, your parents and your siblings, your own mother would become mitochondrial Eve. Not because she was in any way special when she was born, but because she and her decendants later on proved lucky not to be wiped out with the others. If you do not understand that your mother may in principle become mt-Eve after a suitable extinction event in the future, please don't ask for 'citations' saying other women with similar mt-DNA were alive at the same time as mt-Eve." --dab (𒁳) 09:14, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

"234 kya"

The article has been pretty much slaughtered since 2009. The "234 kya" estimate was left over without any indication where it originated. It turns out it was derived from a detailed review of the estimates available in 2009,[1] summarized as

"There are various estimates given for when Mitochondrial Eve lived, ranging between 234,000 years ago and 82,000 years before present(BP), with the majority of estimates clustered between 160,000 and 200,000 BP" (from page 82 "Supplemental Data", mmc1.pdf Soares et al. (2009); see Results, p. 897; Table 3, p.898 of Endicott & Ho (2008))

It is inadmissible to throw out these specific references and just retain "234 kya" without any kind of citation. Anyway, the studies from 2012/13 seem to favour 160 kya, so I am citing this for now.--dab (𒁳) 10:22, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

I misread that. The 2009 studies has "150-234 kya", and the 2013 study has "99-148 kya". I.e. the CIs do not even overlap. An explanation is needed for this (rather than just saying "ca. 150 kya" because this is where the conflicting CIs happen to meet). Also, this duplicates the scope of Macro-haplogroup L (mtDNA), it would be easier to maintain only one page with a topic as complex as this one. --dab (𒁳) 11:22, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

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X-chromasome Adam or x-Chromasome Noah

If the naming of the most recent common ancestor were to strictly follow Biblical terminology, the male counterpart of mitochondrial Eve would be x-chromasome Noah. While the Bible reports that 4 females with possibly 4 different mitochondreal heritiges survived the flood, all of the males were either Noah or his sons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:244:0:1148:CD12:3B40:6137:AC08 (talk) 00:21, 8 November 2018 (UTC)

You're assuming that Noah's wives weren't promiscuous. Given this uncertainty, I argue for Adam! Klbrain (talk) 22:28, 17 February 2019 (UTC)

Capitalization

I noticed that the capitalization of the m in the phrase "Mitochondrial Eve" has been inconsistent throughout the article. I changed several of these in the sections I was reading, but haven't been able to proofread the entire article. Feel free to change any others you see. Aristophanes68 (talk) 23:56, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

What about Paternal mtDNA transmission?

Perhaps it merits at least some mention here - perhaps with the remark that it's thought to be too rare to change the picture significantly? --95.42.25.28 (talk) 04:15, 23 February 2021 (UTC)