Genetics of 'Adam' and 'Eve'

[swestrup]

If you trace back the mitochondrial descent of humans, you discover that we all share the mitochondria of a woman who lived 160,000 years ago: the 'Mitochondrial Eve'. If you trace the Y chromosome back through the generations, you get a 'Chromosonal Adam' who lived just 60,000 years ago. In trying to explain this time discrepancy, it turns out that the easiest model that explains the data is that historically, most men have had children with multiple females. Thus, it appears that polygyny has been around a very long time.

A more complete article on the subject is here.

Comments

[hallo-spacegirl.livejournal.com]

The fact that, historically, men had more babies with more partners than women did might be because during nine months the mother-to-be can't produce any more offspring while the man can go around impregnating any woman who isn't barren or pregnant. So even if she had as many sexual partners as the male, genetically it wouldn't show. No?

[swestrup]

You're probably right. The polygyny may not have been part of the 'accepted' part of the culture. There's no way of knowing. What it does show though is that monogamy is not what most people have practice for most of history.

(Although, now that I think of it, I wonder what kind of model you would get by assuming a mix of monogomous and non-monogomous relationships. I bet you could still get it to fit the data.)