Another evolutionary gap being filled?

[MidGe]

Looks like another of the gaps could be filled by a recnetly found intermediate. Interestingly, this one fits right after Lucy, the common female ancestor (determined genetically) of the whole of mankind.

The news article is here (http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=BW1224278R&news_headline=early _ape_fossil_uncovered). And here (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7086/full/nature04629.html) can be found the original article in Nature.

[SWB]

Lucy is actually the name given to a female australopithecus afarensis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus_afarensis) found in Africa. She isn't (well, probably isn't) a common female ancestor of mankind, she's fossilized so there's no way to recover genetic material from her. The common ancestor is Mitochondrial Eve (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_eve), who is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of modern humanity. She lived only about 150000 years ago and was probably a biologically modern human much like us, and no body or fossil has been discovered that's known to be her - her existence is inferred from genetic data.

That's still a pretty cool find, always nice to see the human family tree getting filled out.

[luckyme]

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The common ancestor is Mitochondrial Eve, who is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of modern humanity.

[/ QUOTE ]

Testing my grasp - Is it correct that MEve must have had at least 2 daughters and at least one grandaughter from each?

luckyme

[SWB]

[ QUOTE ]
Testing my grasp - Is it correct that MEve must have had at least 2 daughters and at least one grandaughter from each?

[/ QUOTE ]

Honestly, I don't know. My grasp doesn't extend far beyond knowing that Eve has an unbroken line of female descendents, I haven't thought real hard about what that'd mean in terms of population dynamics. Intuitively it seems likely that she had several daughters, most or all of whom had daughters of their own.

[Copernicus]

[ QUOTE ]
Looks like another of the gaps could be filled by a recnetly found intermediate. Interestingly, this one fits right after Lucy, the common female ancestor (determined genetically) of the whole of mankind.

The news article is here (http://www.lse.co.uk/ShowStory.asp?story=BW1224278R&news_headline=early _ape_fossil_uncovered). And here (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7086/full/nature04629.html) can be found the original article in Nature.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think it says the new find is an ancestor of Lucy, not after her.

[MidGe]

[ QUOTE ]
Testing my grasp - Is it correct that MEve must have had at least 2 daughters and at least one grandaughter from each?

[/ QUOTE ]
No, not at all, there could have been a group of humans with many couples. It is simply that for all of the females except one the DNA footprint still exist. The others have had their decendents not reproducing at some stage, which theoretically could be very recent only.

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Testing my grasp - Is it correct that MEve must have had at least 2 daughters and at least one grandaughter from each?

[/ QUOTE ]
No, not at all, there could have been a group of humans with many couples. It is simply that for all of the females except one the DNA footprint still exist. The others have had their decendents not reproducing at some stage, which theoretically could be very recent only.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, there may have been thousands of couples. I was thinking if Meve only had one daughter than the daughter would be Meve. If one of her 2 daughters never had a daughter, then again Meve's other daughter would be Meve . ( of course more daughters could be involved at any stage).

luckyme

[MidGe]

SWB,

You are entirely correct re Eve and mitochondrial eve. My bad.