Re: Seven Daughters of Eve
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In reply to:
Seven Daughters of Eve
terry kelley 6/28/09
As of March 2005 36 clans identified.
How many in 2009?
THE 7 EUROPEAN DAUGHTERS OF EVE
Prof. Sykes and Oxford University researchers in England have identified seven ancestral matriarchal groups from which all Europeans appear to be descended. Every European can trace his or her evolutionary history back to the seven ancestral mother groups, also referred to as the Seven European Daughters of Eve. Sykes et al obtained buccal cells from 6,000 individuals and analyzed the samples using the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis. It is known that mtDNA mutates at a very slow rate, such as 1 mutation in every 10,000 generations or 20,000 years. So they figured that the women would have lived between 8,000 and 45,000 years ago. What is amazing is that all seven of the genetic groups appear to be descended from the Lara clan, one of three clans that still exist today in Africa. This is called the African Eve theory. It was proposed in the late 1980's by Allan Wilson, Mark Stoneking and others. The African Eve theory states that all humans share a common African ancestor. Migration routes of the 7 daughters are at this site: http://www.oxfordancestors.comhttp://www.oxfordancestors.com As of 2002, there are believed to be 36 distinct genetic groups worldwide.