Mitochondrial Eve is the name given in genetics to the common ancestor all humans share on their mother's side. This is because mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is different from normal, genetic DNA, is passed down completely to offspring through the mother without changes or recombination. This means that, theoretically, all humans today share the same mtDNA from their maternal lines. Mitochondrial Eve is said to have lived around 200,000 years ago in eastern Africa, the area where a number of scientists believe the modern human race began to develop and spread from.
Even though all humans share this common ancestor and have nearly identical genetic DNA, anyone can see that there is a wide range of appearances among people. This is because as people began to migrate into different areas, they would begin to adapt to the regions they settled in. Certain characteristics became more prominent depending on the temperature, elevation, and other environmental factors, but the genetic DNA within the human race still remains very similar on a global scale. This means that this DNA carries the possibilities for all of the different variations in the human race, but that certain genes have become more expressed for one group of people, while the same gene may be recessive or not as expressed in another group, all depending on the environment in which they live.
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