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Eve real, lived 2 lakh yrs ago

Washington, August 19
Mitochondrial Eve, the maternal ancestor to all living humans, most likely lived about 200,000 years ago, a new study has claimed.

Researchers at the Rice University have conducted what they describe as the most “robust” statistical comparison of 10 human genetic models to confirm that the mother of all living humans lived at the same time when modern humans are believed to have emerged.

The study based on the analysis of mitochondrial DNA — found in the energy-producing centres of human cells — discovered that the genome is only passed down the maternal line, and can be traced back to one woman.

However, they said, this doesn’t mean she was the first modern woman, rather it indicates that only her descendants survived to the present day. “There is always some other female that predated mitochondrial Eve, whose DNA didn’t make it up to modernity,” Professor Marek Kimmel, lead author of the study, was quoted as saying by LiveScience.

“So the age of the mitochondrial Eve is always less than the age of the true, first female modern human.” As part of the three-year project, Kimmel and Krzysztof Cyran, a Polish researcher, compared the estimates produced by about 10 genetic models intended to determine when mitochondrial Eve lived. — PTI