An Eve for all seasons

Science gives us a story of Eve that does not involve any fruit trees with a "Do Not Eat" sign on them or chatty serpents. It also explains the origin of clothing that has nothing to do with "shame" but as a sensible adaptation to changing climes.

"Mitochondrial Eve" – this is the technical name scientists gave to the clan mother to whom we can trace the maternal links of all modern humans living today. Trust scientists to discover something as important as this (the first scientific paper on this was published in 1987) and name her by explaining her at the same time. I suspect that if scientists can condense into a sentence the process by which they sorted out the mitochondrial lineage back to a woman in Sub-Saharan Africa 150,000 to 100,000 years ago, they would have given Eve an even more technical, longer "first name" than "mitochondrial." I guess it would not have hurt if we gave "Mitochondrial Eve" a sexier, more imaginative name but this name which might have turned off some readers at the start of this paragraph, makes the existence of an Alpha Eve no less fascinating.

Mitochondrial DNA is different from our chromosomal DNA. Chromosomal DNA, found in the nucleus of our cells, comes from both our parents (unless you are a clone, in which case you would have both sets of chromosomes only from the donor of the DNA). Mitochondrial DNA swims outside the nucleus of our cells and are passed only from mothers to daughters. Mitochondria are the powerhouse that stores energy that practically runs our bodies. Of course, since women are the ones who bear children who could be females or males, our "Mitochondrial Eve" is the logical origin for modern humans, both men and women. There has been a separate, more difficult tracing of Adam/s, through the Y chromosome, involving yet only those of European descent, and the results tally with existing mitochondrial DNA evidence involving a "Y-chromosomal Adam" with one of Eve’s daughters (Sykes, Brian. Seven Daughters of Eve. New York: W.W. Norton, and Co. Inc., 2001). This just means the story is consistent.

A "Mitochondrial Eve" does not mean that she was the only woman who was in existence in Sub-Saharan Africa and that she was so prolific that her single-generation progeny overflowed in mythical proportions out of the African continent. What it means is that one or several of Eve’s descendants eventually decided to move out slowly out of Africa into other continents, places with colder climes than Africa. This also coincided roughly with the era of clothing since modern humans did not have hair in proportions that would have protected them from the cold as those of their ape ancestors. It is not logical to say that women were solely responsible for thinking it was probably a good idea to dress up to survive. Although as a woman, I think it is safe to say that we generally have had a better handle on style and tried to improve on the useful but generally dull loincloth both for ourselves and wandering Adams. If you want evidence, go to any department store or any televised awards night. Men still overwhelmingly dress the same and they are not even original since penguins (naked, of course) look the same as men in suits. In any case, the end of living in the buff somehow coincided with the time that the daughters of Eve started to move out of Africa to colonize new continents. How did scientists know this? Well, they studied lice. Yes, the genes of body lice.

Body lice hold part of the answer to the end of the naked era; at least that is what scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Dresden, Germany think (Natural History, Nov. 2003). This is because body lice only evolved with clothing. Body lice live in clothes but eat off human skin. Whew, I know, but deal with it. Genetic studies have placed body lice to have evolved from head lice about 70,000 years ago. What an odd thing it is that the origins of clothing, and naturally, of high fashion which carry items priced at amounts that total the GDP of small island-countries, also ushered in the lowly body lice associated with poverty and filth! It is a good thing this column is not in the lifestyle section or I may get hate mail from fashion gurus.

But the story of Eve out of Africa tells us a lot about what she was made of, beyond what I speculate to be a great bonus penchant for style. More importantly, this scientific story of Eve strips the generally interpreted myth of her being an afterthought of creation. To move out of Africa required a strength of body and a tenacity of will that belie culturally evolved myths of what Eve was all about in the story of life. She dealt with harsh terrains, with savage beasts, with the bitter cold and fierce tempests (not to mention the Adams who consistently refused to ask for directions and who, according to humorist Dave Barry, brought home meat but carried them in their armpits!) and most important of all, she survived. She survived! We know this because we have traces of her inside us until now. That is the Eve of a woman to whom all women could trace themselves. This certainly belies all the enumerated "qualities of authentic womanhood" in an e-mail I recently came across, qualities that are supposed to be contradicted, according to the e-mail, by certain sports like soccer and basketball for girls in some schools. Unless a scientific study could back up the clear direct relationship between "soccer and basketball" and "fake womanhood," it is dangerously illogical to act on this imagined link.

Perhaps, Mitochondrial Eve could not care less if what she had to go through then, which is her gift to the world, is not considered genuinely "feminine" now. But I care. I care even if I do not personally care for soccer and basketball. I would also like to think there are many of us who are bothered when some group defines and decides what makes women "real women." It makes a lot more sense to know my biology as Eve as it is clearly and incontrovertibly written within me, in my cells, enduring 150,000 years.

So where is it written that any Eve can dare think for herself, do what she wants, go where she wants and say what she wants free of pre-defined cultural baggage? All over her. Pick any cell.

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