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NakoL1 t1_j2cgxum wrote

Reply to comment by jayhovian in Why is Mitochondrial Eve dated to 150-170,000 years go? by jayhovian

the others have given you the answer but I just wanted to point out that your logic is absolutely correct

that's why all the ancestor-related stuff always specifies "most recent". Otherwise you'd have to enumerate all the ancestors of the ancestors every single time

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jayhovian OP t1_j2dylsb wrote

Thats it! Like others pointed out I missed part of the definition.

Thanks for making it clear!

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bullevard t1_j2eiukk wrote

It is also worth noting that mitochondrial eve can change over time. Say this person had 2 daughters and at some point it just so happens that all of those descended from daughter 2 die out. Then daughter 1 now becomes mitochondrial eve, since that is now the most recent common ancestor.

Obviously our math isn't getting us precise enough to detect that single generational change. But recognizing mitochondrial eve is a concept (whoever the current most recent common female ancestor is) rather than a person (that gal named Ugh Ugh who lived in that cave over there) is helpful. It is pointing at an individual at a time, but that individual can change as human populations change and matrilineal lines die out.

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Busterwasmycat t1_j2e2dnc wrote

which makes it so you have to go back to the very first life form (if there was such a thing), if you take it to the logical conclusion. There are some things that all life shares. We are not so much interested in that stuff, because it does not tell us anything we don't already know (that all life appears to have come from a common origin). We are interested in when the things that make us different came into existence, when we "separated" from the other life that is not like us.

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