DVD- THE REAL EVE
BACKGROUND
- 150,000 y.a. E. Africa
- Ice age
- First modern humans
- Hunter:gatherers
- 7,000 generations ago, left Africa and populated the
world
- Mitochondrial Eve was not the most fertile, just the
most successful genetically
- Trace our “genetic heritage” through Mt DNA because it
doesn’t change
SPECIALISTS
- Rebecca Cann pioneer in field of human genetics
- She says genetic markers can be read like ________
- She sampled ___ Europeans & ____ Africans
- 1987 she found the markers traced to Africa ______
y.a.
- Thesis is that people still living in Africa are the oldest
ppl in the world
- Chris Stringer paleoanthropologist
- Dating oldest skulls ever found
- Says our ancestors made _______ attempts to trek out
of Africa
- There was a brief global freeze-up that expanded the
deserts
- 110,000 ya in the Middle East…trapped these trekkers
there…died in a cave
- Quadfeh Caves _______ found 13 skeletons 1933
- Thought possible route out of Africa would be up the
Nile corridor to Israel…???...across the Sahara?
- 80,000 ya the world cooling…ice caps
advancing…locked in ice, deserts closed in
- Ppl were forced to become fishermen/women & beach
combers
- The Red Sea became saltier making fishing difficult
- Seefee Bearhe geologist looking for clues of humans
in Eretria, found 125,000 ya “_______” and stone tools
in a coral reef
- This evidence found together “________” is the first
evidence ever of our ancestors harvesting the sea
- We were an “endangered species” there were only
10,000 ppl in the world
- Had to move across the Red Sea to Yemen
- Stephen Oppenheimer human geneticist
- 80,000 ya thinks the route was Red Sea across the
“Gates of Grief” into Yemen (shallow water &
reefs…maybe they walked?...maybe only ~ 10 miles)
- Yemen an “almost empty world”
- Our vast family tree spread out to the N, S, W, E went
our separate ways
- Ended up living in 5-6 distinct groups rather isolated
and experienced “___________” a reduction of lines
- Could have even been a drift back to a single
mitochondrial DNA line (could only breed among
themselves)
- If a single exodus out of Africa…implications are huge:
Australians, New Guineans, SE Asians, Chinese, NA
Indians, Indians all came from the same single group.
- Migrated to SE Asia, into the rainforests
- Skin lightened, frame smaller/shorter due to less meat
in diet
- No physical evidence between SE Asia & Australia b/c
reclaimed by the sea
- Sumatra: the Great Toba Eruption 74,000 ya
- Clues about the route/journey from Oppenheimer’s
genetic study of the Samang tribe in Malaya
- Find a tool workshop… the first tangible evidence of the
ancestral journey from Africa to Asia
- The Samang are of the original first migrants to SE Asia
(unique genetic line)
- So… archaeology & genetics yield the same
answer…our ancestors came out of Africa to Yemen to
SE Asia
-
Another great exodus… Australia
Dangerous, risky on the seas, predators…WHY bother?
Blown off course? Intentional migration?
Australian Aboriginals have a # of lines leading only
back to them & directly back to mt Eve…suggests an in
______________________
61,000 ya area occupied by “megafauna”, but 10,000
years later they were all extinct…we destroyed their
environment by _________!
Mungo Man mystery, doesn’t fit…DNA doesn’t match
anyone in the world, any where
Was the DNA contaminated? Why so different?
Factors: natural selection & adaptation, sexual
selection, climate…
Evolution of Skin Colour- relationship between
radiation from the sun & folate
Dark skin: high UV near the Equator need more
melanin to screen UV
Light skin: low UV near the N Pole reduce melanin
needed to screen UV… so… our skin has become more
and more “___________________”
It takes ~ ________ years to turn from Black to
White
On to Europe…
50,000 ya genetic lines began to spread to Europe
Why so long? Land locked by the S Arabian & Lybian
Deserts
But… 50,000 ya the climate improved and became
wetter and they could pass through the Fertlie Cresent
Walked N through the Zagros Mtns, and the Syrian
Desert ?
Genetics does not support, only 1 branch found in
Europe
44,000 ya teen boy burial in Lebanon…a direct
descendant of the Arabians
Neanderthals 1856 Germany/Austria
“cold adapted”- short, stocky, wide nose
Are we a different species?
- We are 10 times closer to them than we are to chimps
- If interbred with us, then breeded out since no trace
now
- w/in _______ years Neanderthals were extinct
- co-existed for _______ years
- best guess… they probably couldn’t adapt
- Great Leap: new tools & ornamentations came w
modern humans
- Fertility goddesses…or real ppl???
- 35,000 ya: sewing, weaving, burials, engravings,
paintings, sculptures, ceremonies, rituals, Shaman…
- The New World: Who were the first North Americans?
- New ice age… 25,000 ya land bridge?
- Came into NA from China, one mutation every 20,000
years
- Maybe migrated by way of the Great Lurithian Ice
Sheet into S America
- Sites:
- Meadowcroft- Ohio River
- 16,000 ya rock shelters, artifacts, middens,
hearths…resemble those from China
- Suggests no single migration to NA but multiple entries
from many different lines
- Kennewick Man Columbia River, WA
- 9,500 ya oldest human ever found in NA
- Did not resemble NA Indians, more like Caucosoid (InuJapan)
- Spear point in pelvis, arthritis, style of spear point
found only after his death
- New population arriving? Siberia? Some sort of conflict?
Over territory?
- Died by hypothermia & drowning
- It took 5,000 generations to arrive in the modern world
we know today
- Since the 1980’s we have 1000’s of DNA samples to
trace the similarities, and the routes our ancestors took
out of Africa
- All share ________