There were other females around at the time of that mitochondrial Eve. That's just how it's passed on generation after generation.
As I understand it, mitochondrial DNA is outside of the nucleus of the cell and we get this from our mother's line. That means that our maternal grandmother's isn't part of our package. It's just that her DNA survived and others didn't. So the mitochondrial Eve is ancestral to all us but not the only female ancestor. It amazes me that this question of direct descent confuses people. Our Artesian colleague correctly takes a mathematical approach. The catastrophic events happen, particularly the genetic bottleneck around 74,000-75,000 years ago, which scientists very plausibly ascribe to the explosion of the supervolcano Toba in Indonesia. Suggestions are that the entire breeding stock of the human race globally was reduced into mere thousands. ML ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
