Mitochondrial Eve

Mitochondrial Eve is the most recent woman from whom all living humans inherited mitochondrial DNA through an unbroken maternal line. She was not the only woman alive in her era or the first woman in human history.

Mitochondrial DNA: DNA in mitochondria, inherited in humans almost entirely from the mother and passed down largely unchanged. Its maternal transmission is the thread linking living people to one shared maternal-line ancestor.
Human mitochondrial haplogroup: A branch of human maternal ancestry identified by characteristic mitochondrial DNA variants. Haplogroups are the surviving branches whose histories converge on Mitochondrial Eve.
Rebecca L. Cann: American geneticist whose research helped establish mitochondrial DNA as a tool for studying human origins. Cann coauthored the influential 1987 study that popularized the mitochondrial common-ancestor result.
Biblical Eve: The first woman in the creation narratives of the Book of Genesis. The shared nickname can obscure that Mitochondrial Eve is a population-genetic inference, not a scriptural figure.
Matrilineal descent: Descent traced through mothers, their mothers, and earlier maternal ancestors. Mitochondrial Eve is defined by tracing this particular kind of descent.
Y-chromosomal Adam: The most recent man from whom all living men inherited their Y chromosomes through an unbroken paternal line. The parallel paternal-line ancestor clarifies that the two ancestors need not have lived together.
Allan C. Wilson: American evolutionary biologist who used molecular evidence to investigate human evolutionary history. Wilson helped develop and lead the research behind the original mitochondrial analysis.
Human population bottleneck: A sharp reduction in the size of a population that can reduce its genetic diversity. A single maternal common ancestor does not show that humanity passed through a one-woman bottleneck.
Genetic drift: Random changes in allele frequencies across generations, especially pronounced in small populations. Chance extinction of maternal lines helps reduce many ancient lines to one surviving lineage.
Most recent common ancestor: The latest individual ancestral to every member of a specified group through at least one line of descent. Mitochondrial Eve is a common ancestor under a restricted genetic and genealogical definition.

Linked from 8 pages