The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry

Now *this* is how a science book is supposed to be written, imo. ?áFocus on the explanation of the actual science - of the theory, of the experiments & tests, of the conclusions. ?áGo into history & personalities only enough to clarify what information you're trying to share. ?áWrite conversationally, but without forced wit. ?áI only wish that 1. this were newer 2. there was more known about the mitochondrial history of the world beyond Europe known at the time this was written, and 3. there was included a list of books recommended for further reading. ?áOf course, one of the strengths of this book is that it was published at exactly the right moment, only months after the theory was fully integrated with data that was made show more available as criticisms of the original release (to academia) were answered. ?áSo it's not the book's fault it's old; it's mine for not reading it sooner. ?áAnd even though it is old, it's still very much worth reading. ?á

Interestingly, I liked the first part of the book best. ?áThe title doesn't become directly relevant until about 2/3 through, when the author describes what the lives of each of these seven women may have been like. ?áToo many suppositions needed to be made, even though, of course, paleoanthropologists have some pretty good ideas that Sykes did use. ?áEven there, though, were some interesting ideas. ?áFor example, Jasmine's story includes an idea that may be relevant to understanding the Great Flood stories.

I particularly like the last chapter, A Sense of Self. ?áIn that chapter Sykes makes it finally fully clear how race is a myth, and how mitochondrial lineages work. ?áHis metaphor of the stage and the string is lovely. ?áIf you want to see whether you want to read the book, at least read that chapter. show less

I don’t often read about science, but the field of human evolution fascinates me. I find it almost impossible to imagine the sheer expanse of time that has passed between the development of the first modern humans and the present day. It makes my head hurt. Things that seem so important in everyday life suddenly dwindle into nothingness when confronted with the epic story of humanity. But, if you turn the question on its head, you realise that humans really haven’t been around that long at all compared to other species with much longer innings – the dinosaurs, obviously, but even our extinct cousins the Neanderthals. Keep thinking, though, because the really staggering thought is actually the most obvious. Every single one of us show more alive today has direct ancestors who learned to make fire, who hunted mammoths, who made flint knives. It wasn’t just our general species that descended from these people. You did. I did. If there was a way to trace your family tree back far enough, through the Ice Age and beyond, into a world that looked completely different to the one we know today – if that was possible, you could find out who your ancestors were. Well, it is possible. Bryan Sykes and his fellow geneticists have done it. And this is the story of their work...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2019/12/14/the-seven-daughters-of-eve-brian-sykes/ show less

Were Polynesian islands peopled by Asians or American Indians? Are the skeletons found at Iekaterinburg the ones of the Romanov family? Is Neanderthal really extincted or, does he have any descendants? What about the Europeans? Do they have Croc-Magnon for ancestor or, farmers coming from the Middle-East? Bryan Sykes tells us the discoveries made by genetics thanks to mitochondrial DNA, a bacteria passing from generation to generation through the maternal line only.

Enthusiast, he is like a kid in a sweetshop. His writing style for instance reflects very well his fascination and excitement -it is actually so accessible that, we sometimes have the feeling of reading a novel! This will be a bit puzzling to whose used to science books but, show more the others will thus find him easier to understand.

I just think the last chapters (the reconstitutions of the seven Eves' lives) are completely useless. I understand they are a very easy way of describing nomadic life, the birth of agriculture, the first villages and so on but, are such fictions not ridiculous in a non-fiction book? Why not using an Appendix? Well, as it is targeted for a very wide audience...

Still a good read. show less

In 1994 Bryan Sykes examined the frozen remains of the Ice Man, found buried in glacial ice in northern Italy. From the DNA he was able to extract, he successfully linked the 5000 year old Ice Man to Europeans living today. This historic discovery set in motion years of research, testing, deliberation, setbacks, and surprises in the field of genetics, as Sykes and his team trudged forward in the (then) relatively new field of DNA testing. This amazing book tells the story of us all - how we are linked through our maternal genes to 7 pre-historic women, the mothers of the world. In fascinating and easily-understood detail, Sykes explains what DNA is and how it works in our bodies; how mitochondrial DNA, passed down to us from our show more mothers, can be used to extract the gene sequences that connect us uniquely to people with similar sequences; how these gene sequences can be used to support or to dispel archaeological debates; and how genetics has come to rival and to compliment the archaeological finds of both the past and the present.

Sykes does not present his evidence in a condescending or absolute manner - he freely admits that his discoveries are based upon what has been researched SO FAR, and that in the future, more research may shed a different light on our genetic ancestries. But it is pretty fascinating to read about how he proved that the Polynesians originated in Asia and not America - a long-debated point in archaeology and history; how he discovered that the pre-historic remains found in Cheddar Gorge, Great Britain, can be traced to a butler living on that same property today; how the study of thousands of European DNA sequences proved that farmers did not overtake and wipe out the hunter-gatherers, as was previously thought, but that these same hunter-gatherers eventually adopted the farming methods, over the years turning more and more to agriculture; how, among the thousands of DNA samples examined, not one (so far) has matched that of a Neanderthal, suggesting that these peoples were not our ancestors but a race of humans that died out; and how, after DNA from the executed Russian Imperial family was extracted and examined, Sykes discovered that he is genetically linked to Tsar Nicholas II.

This book is full of enthralling tidbits that capture the imagination. I never thought science could be so fun or so easily understood. There is so much information packed into these pages that reading them can get a little overwhelming, but a short break from the book will cure any stalling brain, and then it's right back to reading this intriguing information. And, seriously, where was this book when I was in high school "learning" all this stuff? It probably would have been a lot easier... show less

A good introduction to the concept of mitochondrial Eve, and the women that became the founding mothers of Europeans. The author does a very good job of explaining his topic, so for all of those who incredulously greet the concept of the 7 mothers with, "Oh, yeah, like we can know that", my answer will be to read this book. He explains it clearly and lucidly, without a lot of technical jargon, so it's possible to understand just how we traced the lineages backward. He has some interesting stories about identifying the bodies of the Tsar and his family from remains found decades after the revolution. The main weak points of the book are the way he shorthands certain topics, important topics, that lead to misleading information. For show more instance, his work states that Watson and Crick discovered that DNA was the substance of inheritance, but in fact, that was not the case; they merely discovered the structure of DNA (important enough, but let's not rewrite history). Especially annoying was when he gave James Watson the credit for thinking up and performing crystallography on DNA to look at the compound - even Watson doesn't claim that, giving the credit somewhat grudgingly to Rosalind Franklin. One other wholly annoying part of the book was when he constructed fictional histories for the 7 women, creating parents, husbands, and children for them out of whole cloth. There are ways to present this sort of information in an interesting way without resorting to such total fiction, totally out of place in a non-fiction work. It was also interesting that, with one exception, his women's histories all met the standards of acceptable moral behavior among modern, 21st century Europeans (and the one soon corrected her behavior, and began to lead a good Christian life, god rest her soul). This grated. Who's to say our ancestors were so good, so kind, and so intelligent? Is it not possible that at least one of them could have been a thief? A murderer? A prostitute? C'mon, give me a break! Other than that, a good, solid work that should be read widely by those who have preferred not to understand how we know the things we know. show less

Bryan Sykes made several breakthroughs in the extraction of DNA from ancient remains and in the use of mitochondrial DNA to map human origins. While this book is no longer at the cutting edge of genetic research, it retains its value as historical documentation of genetic research. This book won't add names to the branches of your family tree, but it will help you think about the ancient past and your connection to it. Of course, there are always exceptions. I learned that Sykes belongs to mitochondrial haplogroup T. I also belong to haplogroup T, which means that Sykes and I share a common maternal ancestor within the last 17,000 years.

Having been written twelve years ago, Sykes' work on mitochondrial DNA remains a classic in the field of DNA studies for ancestry. There are parts, of course, that are dated at this point because of the progress made in the study of DNA, but some of the information is still very useful in studying how we got to where we are and in the study of the basics in the field itself. Sykes assigned names to the European maternal haplogroups and fictionalized the stories of each of these "seven daughters of Eve." While I understand what the author was trying to do, I'm not sure that was the most effective means of giving life to the groups. The fictionalization seemed out of place in relation to the rest of the book. This work is a must read by show more anyone interested in genetic genealogy. show less