The Seven Daughters of Eve

The Seven Daughters of Eve (2001) by Bryan Sykes is a half-nonfiction, half-historical fiction book that presents the theory of human mitochondrial genetics to a lay audience, speculating about how our prehistoric ancestors might have lived. Sykes is the Emeritus Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford and has been a part of a number of newsworthy cases involving ancient DNA, such as the now-disputed discovery of Cheddar Man.

Sykes begins the book with an explanation of DNA for a general readership: it is the blueprint for all life, the map to our genetic information, vital to our growth, development, and reproduction. He further discusses the science of genetics, how traits are passed from one generation to another, and of human evolution over hundreds of thousands of years. This sets the stage for his discussion of mitochondrial DNA, vital to understanding the book’s contents.

Mitochondrial DNA, Sykes explains, is a type of DNA inherited only from the mother and not the father. This type of genetic material allows scientists and researchers to map out a matrilineal family tree stretching back many generations, one that shows the ancestry from mother to mother. What Sykes has done is to trace back the ancestral mothers of the human race: he has analyzed infinitesimal variations across the mitochondrial DNA of various individuals and used those variations to find others with a similar genetic blueprint.



Sykes illustrates the importance of mitochondrial DNA to lay the groundwork for his central argument. He uses several previous cases of his to explain. For example, he once learned that the entire modern hamster population can be traced back to a single female captured in Syria in 1930. He wanted to prove this for himself. So he called hamster breeders and collected fecal samples as a source of DNA. When he analyzed the genetic components from hamsters far and wide, he discovered identical results. It was true: all the hamsters he sampled from had a common and recent genetic ancestor.

This knowledge helped Sykes establish grounds for creating human DNA trees. In 1991, he was able to use his understanding of DNA and genetics to establish that nine bodies discovered in a mass grave in Russia were those of the overthrown Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family. Mitochondrial DNA also showed that Polynesians can trace their genetic roots back to Asia, disproving Thor Heyerdahl’s theory that they originated in Peru.

Next, Sykes delves into his main argument: almost all Europeans can trace their mitochondrial DNA back to one of seven female ancestors: the “Seven Daughters of Eve” of the title. Each woman belongs to a different mitochondrial haplogroup, defined by characteristic mutations in the mitochondrial genome. These women lived in different generations of prehistory, but they share a single common ancestor known as “Mitochondrial Eve.”



Here, Sykes departs a little from scientific fact and ventures into whimsy: he christens these seven women with names to make them seem more like real people rather than an aspect of a scientific theory. He names each woman after the haplogroup in question: Ursula for Haplogroup U, Xenia for Haplogroup X, Helena for Haplogroup H, Velda for Haplogroup V, Tara for Haplogroup T, Katrine for Haplogroup K, and Jasmine for Haplogroup J.

This discovery is significant: previously, scientists believed modern-day Europeans had displaced an indigenous population sometime during the Stone Age. But the mitochondrial record disproves this: most modern Europeans may actually be indigenous, inhabiting the area since long before the agricultural revolution. The “Daughters of Eve” may have been making Europe their home as long as 45,000 years ago. The hunter-gatherer societies of the pre-agricultural age date back much further than science or history could previously prove.

In the last third of the book, Sykes descends further into creativity. Beyond assigning names to his seven common ancestors, he speculates about each woman’s life, origins, and the conditions in which she might have lived. There is not much scientific underpinning to this section of the book since these mitochondrial ancestors lived long before recorded history.



The Seven Daughters of Eve drew mixed reviews. While Sykes put forth an important theory and successfully explained complex genetic concepts in plain language, critics panned the speculative sections of the book and noted that he does not take his theory far enough. He discusses only European ancestry, so there are more than just seven “Daughters of Eve” worldwide; a review in The Guardian suggested there were more likely thirty-three “Daughters of Eve” altogether. Scientific breakthroughs have also rendered some of Sykes’s work outdated. He later expanded upon the topic in Blood of the Isles, where he uses evidence of both mitochondrial DNA from the mother and the Y chromosome from the father to explore the genetic history of the British Isles.