Seven mitochondrial gene pools ("races") of the world

Tomenable

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In terms of mtDNA (maternal) haplogroups, we can divide humanity into at least 7 populations, which split from each other during the Paleolithic colonization of the world, after the "out of Africa" migration of humans. As the result of migrations which took place later (especially during the Neolithic period, the Metal Ages, and historical times), these populations started to mix with each other again. For example, West Eurasian hg-s migrated into Indian Subcontinent, and both West Eurasian and East Asian hg-s mixed in Central Asia.

Colorful descriptions below the mtDNA Tree show, which mtDNA hg-s colonized which parts of the world. Carriers of some hg-s colonized more than one part of the world; but if we divide these hg-s further into subclades, then usually we find out that carriers of each subclade originally colonized only one region (for example, Andaman Islands were colonized only by two specific subclades of M* and R*):

(I originally made it in Polish, so abbreviations don't match, e.g. East = Wschód; so WA = East Asia)

http://www.phylotree.org/tree/index.htm

http://mtdnaatlas.blogspot.com/2016/02/asia-has-five-mtdna-gene-pools.html

https://s32.postimg.org/w2ws3tq83/Expansion_of_mt_DNA.png

Expansion_of_mt_DNA.png
 
^ Offspring from all other women did not survive to our times.
 
Mitochondrial Eve was not the only Homo Sapiens woman alive in her time, but she is the ancestor of all modern mtDNA. Some aDNA samples from Australia (Kow Swamp and Lake Mungo) had mtDNA lineages which did not descend from Eve. However, in studies on modern Australian Aborigines, these Non-Eve lineages have not been found yet.

So Eve was in terms of mtDNA the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all humans alive today.
 
Not the First Female in a Species

How do you know this? Where and when did our Species "start" ??? :)

We don't even know, if mitochondrial Eve was an anatomically modern human.

Eve was part of some tribe, but other tribeswomen could still be more "archaic".

She could be the "most evolved one" in her tribe, with most progressive traits.

 
This is literally how new species start - they "explode" suddenly (it is called "evolutionary leaps", IIRC).

They start from very few individuals, who develop mutations making them different from their relatives.

Some time ago I watched a documentary about the pine processionary (Thaumetopoea pityocampa). Several years ago - in the 2000s or maybe in the 1990s - a new species of this insect got "created". It emerged because a mutation which allows them to survive in cold temperatures appeared in one of their populations. And from this mutation, a new species arose which does not hibernate in the winter (the original "parent species" hibernates during the whole winter, and starts to expand only during the Spring - while this new species does not hibernate, and expands all the time).

So a new species can form literally overnight - in a blink of an eye. Just one "incompatible" mutation is enough - and such "mutants" will no longer reproduce with the original population, because they are so different.

In that documentary, they said that they were planning to eliminate that new species before it could spread.

However, I'm not sure if they succeeded, so maybe it still exists in France and Iberia today.

======================

So - maybe the mitochondrial Eve was indeed the very first female in our species ???

Her mother could belong to another species, but Eve could be the first of our species.
 
The "species-defining mutation" in our case could be that mutation which gave us a fully developed speech mechanism, allowing us to speak the way we do. Maybe mtDNA Eve and YDNA Adam were among the first humans who could speak. Such new "talking mutants" quickly formed new tribes, separating themselves from dumb populations, which could not pronounce the same sounds as we can, and therefore could not learn our languages.
 
The abbreviation for Sub-Saharan Africa is wrong!
 
Abbreviations are Polish (from Afryka Sub-Saharyjska). I was too lazy to change them too.
 
This is literally how new species start - they "explode" suddenly (it is called "evolutionary leaps", IIRC).

They start from very few individuals, who develop mutations making them different from their relatives.

Some time ago I watched a documentary about the pine processionary (Thaumetopoea pityocampa). Several years ago - in the 2000s or maybe in the 1990s - a new species of this insect got "created". It emerged because a mutation which allows them to survive in cold temperatures appeared in one of their populations. And from this mutation, a new species arose which does not hibernate in the winter (the original "parent species" hibernates during the whole winter, and starts to expand only during the Spring - while this new species does not hibernate, and expands all the time).

So a new species can form literally overnight - in a blink of an eye. Just one "incompatible" mutation is enough - and such "mutants" will no longer reproduce with the original population, because they are so different.

In that documentary, they said that they were planning to eliminate that new species before it could spread.


However, I'm not sure if they succeeded, so maybe it still exists in France and Iberia today.

======================

So - maybe the mitochondrial Eve was indeed the very first female in our species ???

Her mother could belong to another species, but Eve could be the first of our species.

It's completely subjective or a question of vocabulary. A mutation, the most of the time, does not define a new specy by itself. The most of species, I think, are differentiated by number of chromosomes, so drastic modifications.
 

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