Others have put the number at 10, 12 or even 18. Sykes wrote in the book that there were seven major mitochondrial lineages for modern Europeans, though he subsequently wrote that with the additional data from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, Ulrike (see below) could have been promoted to be the eighth clan mother for Europe. Phylogenetic tree of human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups

Velda: corresponds to Haplogroup V, found with particularly high concentrations in the people of Cantabria (15%) of northern Iberia but specially in the Sami people of northern Scandinavia: Swedish Sami (68%), Finnish Sami (37%) and Norwegian Sami (33%).

Ursula: corresponds to Haplogroup U (specifically U5, and excluding its subgroup K).

The seven 'clan mothers' mentioned by Sykes each correspond to one (or more) human mitochondrial haplogroups. Mitochondrial haplogroups in The Seven Daughters of Eve This latter half generally met with mixed reviews in comparison with the first part. The last third of the book is spent on a series of fictional narratives, written by Sykes, describing his creative guesses about the lives of each of these seven 'clan mothers'. All these women in turn shared a common maternal ancestor, the Mitochondrial Eve. Sykes refers to these women as 'clan mothers', though these women did not all live concurrently. Each haplogroup is defined by a set of characteristic mutations on the mitochondrial genome, and can be traced along a person's maternal line to a specific prehistoric woman. The title of the book comes from one of the principal achievements of mitochondrial genetics, which is the classification of all modern Europeans into seven groups, the mitochondrial haplogroups.

He also describes the use of mitochondrial DNA in identifying the remains of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, and in assessing the genetic makeup of modern Europe.

Sykes explains the principles of genetics and human evolution, the particularities of mitochondrial DNA, and analyses of ancient DNA to genetically link modern humans to prehistoric ancestors.įollowing the developments of mitochondrial genetics, Sykes traces back human migrations, discusses the ' out of Africa theory' and casts serious doubt upon Thor Heyerdahl's theory of the Peruvian origin of the Polynesians, which opposed the theory of their origin in Indonesia. The Seven Daughters of Eve is a 2001 semi-fictional book by Bryan Sykes that presents the science of human origin in Africa and their dispersion to a general audience.

Seven eves book