by Iroquois » Tue Jul 04, 2006 4:23 pm
I find the Seven Sisters eminently interesting myself. Important enough to me at least that when seven young birch at the edge of my property line suddenly died I got more than a little concerned. Then I saved the lives of seven signets, so "no worries". I just haven't gotten around to doing any thorough research on the topic.<br><br>As for mDNA corresponding to race, I don't think the two can be linked as mDNA only applies to the little intracellular power plants called mitochondria that are inherited from one's mother. It has nothing to do with the physical characteristics used to categorize people into races.<br><br>If there are indeed 36 maternal sources for all of humanity, there may just as well happen to be 7 matrons that are ultimately the source of those 36. Regardless, according to this hypothesis, all of humanity is descended from a single "mitochondrial Eve" that lived some 100 to 250 thousand years ago. Though, I suppose one could accept the first part of the theory and still reject the single Eve part. Still, these do not at all conform to conventional races. For example, a child with a typical European ancestor in its matrilinial line, regardless of how remote, will be a descendent of one of Oxford Ancestor's "Seven Daughters of Eve" even if every other parent in that child's ancestry are Masayan of Africa and has a very Masayan appearance.<br><br>It should be noted that the mitochondrial Eve theory is well, but not universally, supported.<br><br>This article looks like a fair treatment of the subject: <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc99/2_6_99/bob1.htm">www.sciencenews.org/pages...9/bob1.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Excerpt:<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><br>Genetic studies collide with the mystery of human evolution<br><br>By Bruce Bower<br><br>Just a few years ago, genetic researchers assumed the status of a scientific Supreme Court in the debate over humanity's prehistoric roots. The coils of human DNA appeared to have hardened into a molecular gavel with which these scientists could issue a final ruling on how best to explain the evolution of modern Homo sapiens.<br><br>During the late 1980s, initial studies of global DNA diversity encouraged a vigorous bout of gavel pounding. One after another, investigators concluded that modern humans probably arose in Africa around 200,000 years ago and then spread elsewhere, replacing Neandertals and any other species in our evolutionary past. Analyses of mitochondrial DNA—inherited only through the maternal line—in people from different parts of the world traced the origin of these genes back to one or a few African women dubbed "mitochondrial Eve."<br><br>Decades of anthropological debate over modern human origins that was based on interpretations of measurements and a host of bumps and grooves on ancient fossils teetered on the verge of irrelevance.<br><br>However, even some admirers of mitochondrial Eve now say that the jury is out on whether state-of-the-art DNA studies can live up to their early billing. Accumulating data prove compatible with either of the two main theories of how H. sapiens came about.<br><br>The recent African-origin model championed by many genetic researchers relies on genetic findings that fit just as easily into a contrasting multiregional model. That is, populations of H. sapiens living in different parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe interbred enough over at least the past 1 million years to evolve collectively as a single species. The various populations around the world derived from even older ancestors of H. sapiens in this scenario.<br><br>Practitioners of what has been dubbed anthropological genetics now operate with a sense of caution and a hunger for better explanations of how evolutionary forces produce genetic diversity among individuals and groups.<br><br>"A lot of us have been too eager to assume that a strict out-of-Africa model is correct because it's compatible with the genetic data, without considering that the data also fit with the multiregional theory," says anthropologist John H. Relethford of the State University of New York at Oneonta. "It's time to go back to the drawing board on this issue."<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br> <p></p><i></i>