August 2, 2013

Y Chromosome Study: Adam Older Than Once Thought, But He Never Met Eve

Advanced analysis of DNA from all over the world has revealed that men’s most recent common ancestor lived 120,000 to 156,000 years ago.

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Advanced analysis of DNA from all over the world has revealed that men’s most recent common ancestor lived 120,000 to 156,000 years ago.

The new study, published in the journal Science, shows that a single common ancestor — let’s call him the Y-chromosomal Adam — lived closer to the time of the mitochondrial “Eve” than was previously thought. The two, however, never mated. “Those two people didn’t know each other,” said the UC-Berkeley geneticist Melissa Wilson Sayres.

Read more here.

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