''The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa'' is a

popular science Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...

book about the evolution of modern humans written by British

geneticist A geneticist is a biologist or physician who studies genetics, the science of genes, heredity, and variation of organisms. A geneticist can be employed as a scientist or a lecturer. Geneticists may perform general research on genetic process ...

Stephen Oppenheimer Stephen Oppenheimer (born 1947) is a British Pediatrics, paediatrician, geneticist, and writer. He is a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. In addition to his work in medicin ...

. The book is largely based on the "out of Africa" theory of human origins. Oppenheimer uses information from various disciplines including genetics, archaeology, anthropology and linguistics to synthesize theories on the origin of modern humans and their subsequent dispersal around the world. The ''Eve'' in the title refers to

Mitochondrial Eve In human genetics, the Mitochondrial Eve (more technically known as the Mitochondrial-Most Recent Common Ancestor, shortened to mt-Eve or mt-MRCA) is the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all living humans. In other words, she ...

, a name used for the

most recent common ancestor A most recent common ancestor (MRCA), also known as a last common ancestor (LCA), is the most recent individual from which all organisms of a set are inferred to have descended. The most recent common ancestor of a higher taxon is generally assu ...

of all humans in the

matrilineal Matrilineality, at times called matriliny, is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which people identify with their matriline, their mother's lineage, and which can involve the inheritan ...

(mother to daughter) line of descent.

Book

The book was initially published under a number of different titles including ''Out of Africa's Eden: the peopling of the world'' in January 2003, and ''The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa'' in June 2003.

Synopsis

In the book, Oppenheimer supports the theory that modern humans first emerged in Africa and that modern human behavior emerged in Africa prior to the out of Africa migration. Oppenheimer writes that there was only one migration out of Africa that contributed to the peopling of the rest of the world. Oppenheimer believes that

anatomically modern humans Early modern human (EMH), or anatomically modern human (AMH), are terms used to distinguish ''Homo sapiens'' ( sometimes ''Homo sapiens sapiens'') that are anatomically consistent with the range of phenotypes seen in contemporary humans, from ...

crossed the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

from the

Horn of Africa The Horn of Africa (HoA), also known as the Somali Peninsula, is a large peninsula and geopolitical region in East Africa.Robert Stock, ''Africa South of the Sahara, Second Edition: A Geographical Interpretation'', (The Guilford Press; 2004), ...

and followed the "southern coastal route" once in Asia. Thus Oppenheimer is opposed to the theory that there was another out of Africa migration using a northern route along the Nile and into the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

as suggested by Lahr and Foley 1994. The book also supports the theory that modern humans were in South Asia during the Toba catastrophe. Oppenheimer uses familiar names to describe genetic lineages. The biblical analogies of Adam and Eve are used to describe the

s via

mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA and mDNA) is the DNA located in the mitochondrion, mitochondria organelles in a eukaryotic cell that converts chemical energy from food into adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA is a small portion of the D ...

and the

y-chromosome The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes in therian mammals and other organisms. Along with the X chromosome, it is part of the XY sex-determination system, in which the Y is the sex-determining chromosome because the presence of the Y ...

. Other male lineages are described as Cain, Abel and Seth. Mitochondrial DNA haplogroups are frequently described using female names from regions where the haplogroups are common. For example, the haplogroup M is named " Manju" as it is frequent in India, and the haplogroup N is named " Nasreen" as it is predominant in

Arabia The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

Television documentary

The documentary ''The Real Eve'', based on the book and known as ''Where We Came From'' in the United Kingdom, was released in 2002. The documentary was produced by the American

cable TV Cable television is a system of delivering television broadcast programming, programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This ...

network the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience. It init ...

and was narrated by

Danny Glover Danny Glover ( ; born July 22, 1946) is an American actor, producer, and political activist. Over his career he has received List of awards and nominations received by Danny Glover, numerous accolades including the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian A ...

and directed by Andrew Piddington.

References

External links

*
Genetic Map by Professor Stephen Oppenheimer
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Real Eve 2003 non-fiction books Genetics books Books about cultural geography Human evolution books Recent African origin of modern humans Hebrew Bible in popular culture Documentary television shows about evolution