Article: All Family Trees Lead to `Eve,' An African, Scientists Conclude;Genetic Analysis Indicates Common Ancestor 200,000 Years Ago

About 200,000 years ago there lived one woman who was a maternal ancestor of every human being living today, a team of biologists has concluded after analyzing special genes in the cells of people from all the world's major racial and ethnic groups.

The scientists have taken to calling the woman "Eve" because she is thought to be the one maternal ancestor common to all the family trees of every member of the human race.

The name may be misleading, however, because she is not the sole maternal ancestor. The claim is not that every person is descended only from Eve, or that she was the only woman having children 200,000 years ago. She had many contemporaries who were each among the ...

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