Population geneticists have traced the human family tree to an ancestral homo sapiens community of only 2000 breeding individuals living in Africa, which began splitting up approximately 144,000 years ago and migrating to Asia and Europe before the Americas. Analyses of mitochondrial DNA passed from mother to child have identified only one female (a mitochondrial “Eve”) at the root of the mDNA family tree represented by orange lines; other lineages fell extinct. Y chromosome sequences passed from father to son are represented by green lines and go back to a single chromosonal “Adam.” It is believed that 10 principle branches in the Y chromosome tree may correspond to the world’s major language groups.
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