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From: hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: We've got Eve.  Now what about Adam?
Summary: The other women at the time still provide most of the inheritance
	 from female ancestors
Message-ID: <2683@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 12 Dec 90 10:59:11 GMT
References: <15461@cs.utexas.edu> <0bLsVz600Vpb0ftUp_@andrew.cmu.edu> <1990Dec11.105612.2009@desire.wright.edu>
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In article <1990Dec11.105612.2009@desire.wright.edu>, sbishop@desire.wright.edu writes:
> In article <22079@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>, davisd@beasley.CS.ORST.EDU (David M. Davis - Public Safety) writes:
> > 
> >    I recall reading about a problem with this study. I can't recall what the
> > problem was. If it was in the analysis or in the data but there was a 
> > problem. It is an interesting theory, (I saw the NOVA that talked about it.)
  
> The best book on the topic is _The Search for Eve_.  It covers all the
> arguments on the subject very well.  BTW, the main complaint is that using
> The Eve Theory, all other lines of humans around the world at that time 
> are considered to have gone extinct.  This doesn't do well with the 'bone'
> scientists since they see a definite pattern with the fossil bones through
> out that period and later on as to inheritance of certain characteristics.

All of our mitochondrial ancestry comes from Eve.  There is no other female
at the time who contributes genetically in an unbroken female line.

But this says nothing about contributions to our *chromosomal* inheritance.
Because our chromosomes come from both parents, there is no comparable way
of tracing their inheritance, except possibly for the portion of the Y
chromosome coming from the father without crossover possibilities with X.
This, if it could be carried out, would be the search for Adam.

This exclusively male part of the Y chromosome is a very small part of
the 46 human chromosomes.  I do not know the relative contribution of
the mitochondrial DNA.  But it would definitely not be legitimate to
say that the line of a woman is extinct if she only has sons, or the
line of a man is extinct if he only has daughters.
--
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
Phone: (317)494-6054
hrubin@l.cc.purdue.edu (Internet, bitnet)   {purdue,pur-ee}!l.cc!hrubin(UUCP)