Genetic Adam and Eve

[Solothurn]

Hi

This has probably been asked/answered before and if it has my apologies

According to the FTDNA migration maps, Genetic Eve lived 120,000 years ago and Genetic Adam just 60,000 years. Why the gap of 60,000 years between the two?

Did Adam become 'human' later in his development

[AlisonT]

I think it's because fewer men (those with more power/influence/strength/whatever) were able to father a large number of children with multiple women, whereas more women were more likely to produce smaller numbers of children, usually from the same man, which means female lineages remain more diverse than male lineages. So it takes longer for us to get back to a common female ancestor than it does to get back to a common male ancestor.

[Solothurn]

So who did Eve mate with

I think it's because fewer men (those with more power/influence/strength/whatever) were able to father a large number of children with multiple women, whereas more women were more likely to produce smaller numbers of children, usually from the same man, which means female lineages remain more diverse than male lineages. So it takes longer for us to get back to a common female ancestor than it does to get back to a common male ancestor.

[sjadelson]

So who did Eve mate with

Eve mated with a man, and the descendants of that union either "daughtered out" or resulted eventually in Adam. Which it is of those two is true doesn't really matter for this discussion. Adam is the most recent common male ancestor to everyone alive today, whether or not we're also descended from Eve's mate.

[Solothurn]

This is where I get confused

If they "daughtered out" who mated with a 'daughter' to produce 'Adam'?

Eve mated with a man, and the descendants of that union either "daughtered out" or resulted eventually in Adam. Which it is of those two is true doesn't really matter for this discussion. Adam is the most recent common male ancestor to everyone alive today, whether or not we're also descended from Eve's mate.

[sjadelson]

This is where I get confused

If they "daughtered out" who mated with a 'daughter' to produce 'Adam'?

"Adam" quite clearly had ancestors of his own, but he is the MOST RECENT common male ancestor.

I think you're confusing the idea of most recent male and most recent female with that of "most recent pairing common to all". It's possible that Adam in this case is a descendent of Eve and her mate, but since Adam lived 60000 years later, he wins the title of most recent male ancestor.

Think of it this way: if you had a perfect tree of everyone on earth, and traced up the paternal line -- everyone's father, his father, HIS father, etc. -- the first name you'd hit common to everyone would be "Adam". Likewise, following up the maternal line, you'd eventually hit "Eve". That doesn't mean that Adam and Eve knew each other.

[Solothurn]

Thanks

I will take time to read this and see if I can get my head around it

"Adam" quite clearly had ancestors of his own, but he is the MOST RECENT common male ancestor.

I think you're confusing the idea of most recent male and most recent female with that of "most recent pairing common to all". It's possible that Adam in this case is a descendent of Eve and her mate, but since Adam lived 60000 years later, he wins the title of most recent male ancestor.

Think of it this way: if you had a perfect tree of everyone on earth, and traced up the paternal line -- everyone's father, his father, HIS father, etc. -- the first name you'd hit common to everyone would be "Adam". Likewise, following up the maternal line, you'd eventually hit "Eve". That doesn't mean that Adam and Eve knew each other.

[1798]

Thanks

I will take time to read this and see if I can get my head around it

When they did decide to leave Africa they went on separate routes and still produced descendants!!!
After this big event R1b decided to hang around south west Asia until farming came along and made it into western Europe just in time for the Bronze-Age without the ladies of course.The Mesolithic men weren't the jealous types and just let their women loose on the incoming R1b.......
I'm trying to get my head around all of this stuff as well.

[ajmr1a1]

This is where I get confused

If they "daughtered out" who mated with a 'daughter' to produce 'Adam'?

They procreated with a group of Neanderthal males who were touring as a rock band. (music which consisted of a lot of grunting, spitting blood and pyrotechnics i.e. fire-breathing)

No wait, that was KISS. ;') LOL

[prairielad]

Genetic Adam was A00, There was other male lineages at the time which of course went back to genetic Eve.
Lets label the B00, C00, ect. hypothetically.

Over time these other early yDNA haplogroups ,which are all branches of a earlier yDNA haplogroup in Genetic Eves time, ceased to be passed on and died out. They either had only daughters, or met with some other fate.
Only A00 survived and has become all the diverse ydna haplogroups of today according to current accepted Science.

Genetic Adams A00 haplogroup is not the first haplogroup "human" yDNA haplogroup, it is just the furthest back current Science has come up with according to modern mans haplogroups.

Trace of these men (ones before Genetic Adam) will be still in our genetics (chromosome 1 to 22) it is just their y that failed to be passed on. Or at least I should say they still contributed to who we are today

[Solothurn]

With you now I hope

We all descend from 1st humans x no of years ago!

IN COMMON 'MOST RECENT' male ancestor 60,000 years.
IN COMMON 'MOST RECENT' female ancestor 120,000 years.

"Adam" quite clearly had ancestors of his own, but he is the MOST RECENT common male ancestor.

[S9 H9]

With you now I hope

We all descend from 1st humans x no of years ago!

IN COMMON 'MOST RECENT' male ancestor 60,000 years.
IN COMMON 'MOST RECENT' female ancestor 120,000 years.

Not really.

I'm afraid not only using the names "Adam" and "Eve" counter productive, but so are many of the explanations.

Here is what you're missing: we are more than just a Y chromosome and some mitochondria.

All the current human Y chromosomes living on the planet will find their most recent common ancestor, label it A00 if you want, sometime in a neighborhood in Africa even before 60,000 years ago. However, this is ignoring the pseudoautosomal regions, which may link us all more recently in time.

All the current mitochondria will also be able to find a common ancestor sometime in the neighborhood of a hundred thousand years ago or so.

Both of these dates are debated because of uncertainties in mutation rates. Plus, all the Y chromosomes and mitochondria in the existing human population have not yet been tested.

However, our other DNA, and that is most of our DNA, have taken their own paths down through time. And thus we can share a common ancestor as far as a formal pedigree would present him or her, differently than that of Y ancestors or mitochondria ancestors.

We all probably share a common ancestor more recently than 60,000 years ago. Europeans certainly have (and very recently indeed), and the same could be said of other regional human populations.

[S9 H9]

Really interesting, the huge gap is a confusing factor, I can not reach a conclusion in this matter.

One way to think of it is this: your mitochondria didn't care about anything but simply being passed down in your mother's egg. And before you the same with your mother and grandmother, and so forth.

On the scale of human reproduction the mitochondria don't really care what is going on with the nuclear DNA - your 46 chromosomes (23 from each parent.) Only in the very big picture of life on earth over many millions of years have the mitochondria struck a deal with the nuclear DNA, on being able to minimize and specialize what the mitochondria do. But on our timescale the mitochondria really don't care. They just go from egg to egg.

As such, tracing our mitochondria back to where they will converge to their own common ancestor doesn't have to fit where the set of 22 autosomes happen to converge to a common ancestor (if at all), or in particular where all us males' existing Y-chromosomes have to converge on some common ancestor. The mitochondria don't even know the Y chromosome exists - they don't need it.

This is one reason why using the phrases "Adam" and "Eve" is misleading - it mistakingly paints the past as existing only as humans, not (only, misleadingly) just two humans but also only a simple thing - an indivisible entity. Rather, our past exists as many things. We are a collection of things, among them these little critters we call mitochondria.

[perttuns]

...

This is one reason why using the phrases "Adam" and "Eve" is misleading - it mistakingly paints the past as existing only as humans, not (only, misleadingly) just two humans but also only a simple thing - an indivisible entity. Rather, our past exists as many things. We are a collection of things, among them these little critters we call mitochondria.

Using names as "Adam" and "Eve" is mainly misleading because Adam and Eve are not historical persons, and anyways rather symbolical in the context of science, to refer for any/ a first known man and a woman in the beginning of our phylogenetic tree in prehistory, that we can't however point concretely as certain first persons, nor at a very accurate known geological place. So there is no need to try to find any logical connection with the biblical story in witch Adam and Eve are prehistoric and fictious persons. They are just chosen symbols, maybe chosen to make the first y- and mt-lines more comprehensible, maybe unsuccessful with the effort and making it even more confusing.

I hope i did not hurt anyone's feelings. However, this is a scientific forum.

I hope "Adam" and "Eve" make more sense now.