Indeed, she is termed mitochondrial Eve if I remember correctly. Then again I could have all my facts wrong...
You're not, you're right.
Mitochondrial Eve refers to the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA).
In other words, this was the woman from whom all living humans today descend, on their mother's side, and through the mothers of those mothers and so on, back until all lines converge on one person.
Because it is generally passed from mother to offspring without recombination, all mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) in every living person is directly descended from hers by definition.
Mitochondrial Eve is the female counterpart of Y-chromosomal Adam, the patrilineal most recent common ancestor, although they lived thousands of years apart.
Each ancestor (of people now living) in the line back to MRCA had contempories such as brothers, sisters, cousins, etc. but none of those people have descendants living now.
Mitochondrial Eve is generally estimated to have lived around 200,000 years ago,[2] most likely in East Africa,[3] when Homo sapiens sapiens ("anatomically modern humans") were developing as a population distinct from other human sub-species.
Mitochondrial Eve lived much earlier than the out of Africa migration that is thought to have occurred between 95,000 to 45,000 BP.[4]
The dating for 'Eve' was a blow to the multiregional hypothesis, and a boost to the hypothesis that modern humans originated relatively recently in Africa and spread from there, replacing more "archaic" human populations such as Neanderthals.
As a result, the latter hypothesis is now the dominant one.
What I really *really* like about this, is that we
all come from the same little female in eastern Africa.
Which again proves that we are the same race - eat THAT, racists!
The downside of this is that it means that we're basically related to creeps like Adolf Hitler, Ted Bundy, Osama Bin Laden, etc.
Total bummer!
The cool thing is that we're also related to people we like and admire.
Admitted - the family relationship IS stretched
quite a bit (give or take a few thousand generations), but it
is there.
'Mitochondrial Eve': Mother of all humans lived 200,000 years ago
*hums*...walk like an Egyptian....