Prompt Cast
Tracing Human Ancestry to a Single Woman 180,000 Years Ago
TLDR According to a 1987 study, humans can trace their ancestry back to a single woman, known as Mitochondrial Eve, who lived approximately 180,000 years ago in Africa. This supports the out of Africa hypothesis and suggests that all humans today are distant cousins.
Timestamped Summary
00:00
Humans on Earth can trace their ancestry back to a single woman who lived approximately 180,000 years ago, according to a 1987 paper published in the journal Nature.
01:41
Humans can trace their ancestry back to a single woman who lived approximately 180,000 years ago, based on the analysis of mitochondrial DNA.
03:07
Mitochondrial Eve lived in Africa approximately 180,000 years ago and must have had at least two daughters, supporting the out of Africa hypothesis and narrowing down her potential origin to the region of the Kalahari Desert.
04:29
Mitochondrial Eve is not the first human or the first woman, but rather the most recent common female ancestor that every human has today, and while she can change over time, there is also a male equivalent ancestor passed through the Y chromosome.
05:55
The time difference between Y chromosome atom and mitochondrial eve is due to the reproductive potential of men and women, with men being able to father more children than women.
07:11
The most recent common ancestor might have only existed about 3-5,000 years ago, and would have probably lived in southern or eastern Asia.
08:34
All of humanity is one big family, and we are all distant cousins of each other.
