It’s been a while since this book was published, of course, and the science of investigating ancient mitochondrial DNA has been going from strength to strength, but this is still a good book on the background of that research, the importance of mitochondrial DNA, and the idea that we can trace our lineage back through the female line to just a few specific women. (Actually, this is very Europe-centric, a fact that becomes clear when you read the whole book: the seven ‘clan mothers’ mentioned are only the last common ancestors of European mitochondrial lines.)

Sykes writes clearly and well, and the only bit I wasn’t happy with as popular science writing is the little fake histories of the seven women. He tries to put flesh on the bones of what the women might have been like, the environment and social situations they would have encountered, but it’s really far too much like pure fiction for me. If he’d even included some more perhapses and maybes and alternative scenarios, I might have been more comfortable with it. As it is, it gives us a false idea that there were seven such knowable women.

Still, it’s fascinating stuff and I do love reading about this kind of genetic detective work.

سبع بنات لحواء ..العلم الذي يكشف عن أسلافنا وراثيا
بريان سايكس
.........................
المعروف علميا لدي الجميع أن الإنسان يرث صفاته مناصفة من الأب والأم عن طريق الخلايا التناسلية، حيث يرث نصف كروموسوماته من الأب ونصفها من الأم، ومعروف كذلك لدينا جميعا أن المورثات (الكروموسومات) موجودة في نواة الخلية والتي تنقسم عند تكوين الخلايا التناسلية التي يتكون من اندماج اثنين منها (واحدة من الذكر وواحدة من الأنثي) الكائن الحي.
المعلومة الجديدة التي أثارها هذا الكتاب أن هناك مادة وراثية أخرى غير الموجودة في النواة، هذه المادة الوراثية توجد في الميتوكندريا، والميتوكندريا كما نعرف هي المولد الذي يحرق الغذاء وينتج الطاقة التي يحتاجها الجسم، والغريب فيها أننا نرث الميتوكندريا في خلايانا من الخلية التناسلية للأم فقط، نحن نرث الميتوكندريا من بويضات الأم فقط وذلك ليس لأن الحيوان المنوي ليس به ميتوكندريا، بل لأن الميتوكندريا التي توجد بالحيوان المنوي توجد في الذيل، وحينما يخترق الحيوان المنوي البويضة فإنه يخترقها بالرأس فقط بينما يبقي الذيل بالخارج ويزول مع الفضلات، لذلك تبقي في أجسادنا نوع من الدي إن إيه من الأم فقط، وهذه المعلومة تحديدا مثيرة جدا في علم الوراثة وعن طريقها نكتشف الكثير.
يحكي الكاتب في أول الكتاب حكاية عن اكتشاف إنسان الجليد الذي بقيت جثته محتفظة بكافة تفاصيلها مطمورة في الجليد لآلاف السنين، المادة الوراثية لهذا الإنسان كانت محتفظة بتفاصيل دقيقة وقدمت خدمة جيدة لعلم الوراثة. المادة الوراثية في الميتوكندريا لهذا الإنسان الذي عاش قبل آلاف السنين متطابقة تماما مع المادة الوراثية في الميتوكندريا لإنسان يعيش في العصر الحديث. كان هذا الاكتشاف شديد الروعة.
قبل قرن تقريبا كان أحد العلماء قد عثر في سوريا علي سلالة من الفئران (الهامستر) وأعجب بها فنقلها إلي بلاده، وتناسلت وكثرت حتي أنه أهدي منها الكثير لمعامل التجارب بالكثير من جامعات العالم، حتي صار نسل الزوجين الأولين يعد الآن بالملايين، وبالكشف عن المادة الوراثية للميتوكندريا لعينات مختلفة من أنحاء العالم اكتشف العالم أنهم ينتمون وراثيا للأم الأولي التي جلبها العالم من سوريا، هذا يعني أنهم يمكنهم اكتشاف نفس الأمر في الإنسان، الأمر هو الانتماء لسلالة أو عشيرة أموية واحدة.
نلاحظ أن هناك طفرات تحدث في المادة الوراثية بالميتوكندريا، وهي تحدث في نطاق ضيق جدا، ونلاحظ أيضا أن البحث في المادة الوراثية للميتوكندريا يعتبر سهل جدا إذا وضع في مقارنة بالمادة الوراثية بأنوية الخلايا؛ لان طول الشريط الوراثي في الميتوكندريا لا يتجاوز بضع مئات من القواعد، بينما هو يعد في النواة بالملايين من القو��عد.
بالبحث في عينات خلايا أوروبيين وعلي نطاق واسع تبين أن الأوروبيين ينحدرون جميعا لسبع أمهات فقط، وبالبحث العلمي في الحفريات القديمة ومادتها الوراثية تبين وجود سبع أنماط مختلفة للميتوكندريا في هذه الحفريات مما يجعل هذه الحفريات القديمة للأسلاف بمثابة أمهات مباشرين للأوروبيين باعتبارهم الأقدم وجودا في أوروبا.
ألف الكاتب قصة حول كل حفرية من هذه الحفريات الأمهات للسكان الاوروبيين، وفي كل قصة منها مزج الكاتب بين الخيال والواقع، فمن الواقع أخذ الزمن والمكان الذي وجدت فيه الحفرية، ومن الخيال ابتكر عائلة وأسلوب حياة وعمل لكل شخصية، وأضاف من خياله ما جعل القصة كأنها حقيقية فعلا.
الكتاب ثري جدا في معلوماته كما أن الكاتب يحكي بأسلوب أدبي يمزج بين الحكاية و المحاضرة العلمية وقل من العلماء من استطاع المزج بين الأسلوبين في كتاب علمي بهذه الدسامة والثراء العلمي، كما أن المترجم غني عن التعريف لكثرة ما قدمه للعلم والثقافة العلمية من كتب متنوعة.

Too much of this book is fiction, and what isn't fiction is sometimes plain wrong.
On p26 he claims that Watson & Crick used X-rays to calculate the positions of atoms within DNA.

This is totally untrue.

Watson & Crick did NO experimental work on DNA,
an English woman did the X-ray work and watson & crick "borrowed" her work.
And borrowed much more from others.

He also claims there was a "general lack of interest in  by most of their contemporaries"

Again, FALSE, in the 1930's an american scientist proved that genetic information was passed on by DNA instead of proteins,
and there was great interest in knowing the structure of DNA and how it worked.
Many scientists including Linus Pauling were working on this.

All watson & crick did was to go around and pick the brains of these other scientists and put things together.

Everyone knew finding out how DNA worked would be worth a Nobel prize so they didn't share their experimental findings with each other.

Watson & crick played the "I'm just a schoolboy" act to perfection and were able to get the others to open up to them.

They should have gotten a prize for deceiving others,
that was their real genius.

He spends a lot of time proving that the Polynesians came from Taiwan.
This was proved long ago by language analysis, something he "forgets" to mention.
Or didn't know.

He didn't discover anything new here, merely added another layer of evidence.

Why 7 daughters?
Just a writers trick.
Personally I think it would be more informative to have 100 or more.

And spending a half page talking about his car problems in Wales?
boringggg.

Other writers have done a much better job writing about this subject.

A popularly written account, by the main researcher, of the genetic studies into the mitochondrial DNA of most Europeans, which identified 95% of all modern Europeans as the descendents of one of seven women, six of whom lived in the Old Stone Age and one of whom lived later in the Near East. These are the 'Seven Daughters" of the title, and the book gives imaginary reconstructions of their lives during the Ice Age. Mitochondrial DNA is passed down along the maternal line, and does not recombine or split up between the mother's and faather's contributions, so it is much easier to track than nuclear DNA.

The information here was fascinating; in addition to the European data, he also discusses the origins of the Polynesians (two groups, one from Taiwan via the Moluccas and one from New Guinea) and the native Americans (99% in four groups from Siberia, 1% in a group originating in the Near East -- unfortunately for the Mormons, a few tens of thousands of years too early to be the "Lamanites" of the Book of Mormon)

How genetic knowledge is rewriting the prehistory

This is a popular book of scientific discovery written in an affecting and engaging style by a geneticist who has the all too rare gift of writing extremely readable prose.

Professor Bryan Sykes draws the reader into his story as easily as a best-selling novelist. And this is just the "science" part of the book which lasts for fourteen chapters. Then come the fictional chapters about the seven daughters and their imagined stories, so touching and so full of the very human struggle to survive in the prehistory that I could not read them without misting up. (But then I tend to the sentimental.)

Sykes begins with the story of how he was able to identify a living descendant of the five-thousand year old "ice man" found in northern Italy in 1994 by comparing mitochondrial DNA sequences. Mitochondrial DNA is contained only in egg cells (thus, "Eve" and her daughters), not in sperm cells, and transmitted without recombination so that the changes are all the result of mutations that occur at a predictable rate over time. Then he tells the story of how the bodies of the murdered Romanovs, the last of the Russian Tsarist families, were identified through DNA fingerprinting. Both of these stories are more about media events and ventures in forensics than original scientific work. But then comes the story of where the Pacific Islanders originated.

When I was young I read the engaging story of Thor Heyerdahl in his book Kon-Tiki in which he attempted to prove that the Polynesians originated in the Americas by sailing west into the Pacific. This beguiling theory is demolished once and for all by the DNA evidence that Sykes presents. He shows that the Polynesians were originally from Southeast Asia and made all their great ocean discoveries by sailing against the prevailing winds, going east toward the Americas.

Sykes notes that because this was the prevailing scientific opinion his work met with mostly agreement. However when he and other geneticists were able to show that the current population of Europe is mainly descended from the original hunters and gathers that lived there prior to the arrival of the farmers who brought agriculture from the Middle East roughly ten thousand years ago, they ran into resistence. The prevailing scientific opinion was that the farmers overwhelmed the hunters and that most of today's Europeans are descended from those farmers. Sykes relates the story of the scientific controversy and how the genetic proof finally prevailed against entrenched opinion. Incidentally, to me the intriguing thing about this discovery is the question, not addressed in the book: What, if any, conclusions can we draw from the fact that 80% of our European genes came from hunters and gathers and only 20% from Middle Eastern farmers?

There is also the story of the "Cheddar Man" and how Sykes learned to extract DNA from the bones of people dead tens of thousands of years. Finally there is his argument for all people of European descent coming from just seven women who lived ten thousand to forty thousand years ago, the so-called, "Seven Daughters of Eve." (World-wide Sykes identifies 33 "daughters of Eve.")

To round out the book, Sykes writes an imaginative chapter about each one of the seven daughters. Here is where some readers are displeased, claiming that Sykes's imaginings are unscientific and even slanted. One reader complained about the men out hunting and the women remaining behind in caves as a kind of stereotype that has been overcome. But remember Sykes is writing in six cases out of seven about European peoples who made their living primarily from hunting during the ice ages, not from gathering. Think about how much "gathering" the Inuit do and you can see why he emphasized hunting. In the seventh case, about Jasmine, whom he sees as being from the birthplace of agriculture in modern Syria, his story is different. Indeed he has Jasmine and her non-hunting mate inventing agriculture! I might also point out for those who skimmed the "daughters of Eve" chapters, that he also has a woman playing a major part in the invention of water-going craft.

If I were to criticize this book I would say he was too generous in his depiction of human beings in the prehistory. He describes their lives as hunters and gathers, their hardships and their short and difficult lives with an emphasis on their humanity and how that helped them to survive. He downplays any part humans may have had in the extinction of the Neanderthal. He relates no rapes or murders or tribal wars, and de-emphasizes tribal sexism. He shows the beginnings of trade and cooperation. The result is so warm and touching I'm surprised that Stephen Spielberg hasn't taken out an option on the book. (Maybe he has!)

Finally, this is not an academic tome. It is a popular science book meant for educated lay persons. There are no learned academics writing glowing blurbs on the cover. Most academics would be afraid to write a book like this because of the imaginative chapters which are quasi-scientific and can be so easily criticized.

In short Professor Sykes is a tremendously engaging writer (with guts) who happens to be a world-class scientist. His goal was to communicate something about what he has learned to a wide readership, and I think he did a good job. If you can read this book without feeling better about humanity, maybe you should read it again.

--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”

This is a really interesting read. due to the science content (bearing in mind the time that has elapsed since my biology A'Level) it tool longer than I would have liked to read it, but I enjoyed it. The first 250pages are the non-fiction journey to the discovery, where the author discusses the research, the journey, publication and having to defend the research against critics and newer studies, and it's a fascinating insight into the world of scientific research. Then there are imagined storied of the lives of the 7 women. I actually enjoyed these, although I think I would have preferred more details about the research that shows what their lives may have been like. The final chapter, was more of an opinion piece than a summary and was my least favourite chapter of the book.

Named Helena, Jasmine, Kathrine, Tara, Ursula, Velda, and Xenia, the seven daughters of the book’s title are women who lived some 10,000 to 45,000 years ago, with nearly every European genetically linked to one of them. Figure 6 of the book, reproduced below, depicts the seven daughters (dark circles), along with their age and relationships. The map (not from the book) shows where the seven women lived and what percentage of modern Europeans are descendants of each.

Link to Figure 6:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...

Link to map and table:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fb...

Tracing of a human’s female ancestors is easier than male ancestors, because of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) being passed from a mother to her daughters with very little error or modification. Because of this reliable and relatively error-free transmission of genes, it is possible to verify genetic relatedness over hundreds or even thousands of generations of maternal succession with near certainty. Mutations along this line of succession are rare, occuring roughtly once every 200+ generations, a fact that can be used to date mtDNA samples in a probabilistic sense. Through this method, all human beings in the world have been linked to the so-called “mitochondrial Eve,” a female ancestor of all of humanity who lived 150,000 years ago.

Before the research described in this book, the prevailing theory about the ancestery of Europeans was the so-called “wave of advance” [p. 153], which suggests that Europeans are by and large descendants of Near-Eastern farmers who moved westward and dominated (genetically) the former residents of the continent. The first known domestication occurred about 11,000 years ago in the Near East [p. 135]. So, if the wave-of-advance theory were correct, nearly all European genes should be traceable to ancestors living after the end of the last Ice Age. Yet, only Jasmine, the maternal ancestor of only 17% of Europeans, supports this theory. Ancestors of a vast majority of Europeans were already living in Europe well before the advent of farming [p. 184].

Sykes got a lucky break that helped him prove his theory regarding the reliable transmission of mtDNA. When the frozen remains of a 5000-year-old Ice Man were discovered in Italy in the 1990s, Sykes was called to examine them. He was able to extract genetic material from the long-dead body and eventually located one of his living descendants in Great Britain. An amazing feat, when one thinks about it. Many of us struggle to find our ancestors of a few generations ago, and this woman by sheer luck, found her Ice-Man ancestor from some 200 generations ago!

In studying the human pre-history, genetics is only one of the available tools. Genetic deductions can be combined with linguistic and archaeological discoveries to make more accurate connections. The developments in genetics are exciting, but there are also down sides. A vigorous battle is raging among corporations to patent genes in order to facilitate and attract investments. This is very troubling, as such patents may impede scientific research.

An unfortunate roadblock in tracing a person’s female ancestery, which would lead to a maternal family tree [p. 291], is the practice of women adopting their husbands' surnames. So, when going generations back, it is common to lose the thread due to name changes. If we had the complementary practice of passing a woman’s surname (what we now call maiden name) to children, following the lineage via mtDNA would have been much simpler [p. 291].

More than two dozen other daughters of eve have been discovered that are responsible for populations on other continents. While the author focuses on mtDNA, there is also a parallel paternal pathway through past generations via the SRY gene that one might say leads to “sons of Adam” [p. 187].

In the book’s penultimate paragraph [pp. 296-297], the author philosophizes thus: “An electronic board in the lobby continuously flashed up the DNA sequences as they came off the machines. Before my very eyes the details of the genome that had been hidden for the whole of evolution were marching across the screen. Was this, the reduction of the human condition to a string of chemical letters, the ultimate expression of the Age of Reason that first began to separate our minds from our intuition and to distance us from nature and our ancestors? How ironic that DNA should also be the very instrument that reconnects us to the mysteries of our deep past and enhances rather than diminishes our sense of self.”

Let me end my review by relating a few interesting tidbits from the book.

- Two fishermen on a small island in Scotland had ancestors in Portugal and Finland, respectively, with those ancestors related through someone in Siberia [p. 295]. The magic of genetics discovered this relationship that would have remained hidden otherwise.

- The world’s most prolific male was Moulay Ismail, Emperor of Morocco, father to 700 sons at age 49 in 1721 (and perhaps as many daughters, but in those days, daughters weren’t all that important, so no one kept track of the numbers). Moulay Ismail died in 1727, so he may have had many more children.

- The world’s most prolific female was Mrs. Fedora Vassilyev of Russia who produced 69 children from 1725 to 1765. They were all multiple births: 6 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 lots of quadruplets.

I was already fascinated with haplogroups before picking this up, and genetics is always an interesting field, so this was an enjoyable book.

I thought I was waiting to get to the profiles of the named clan mothers, but all of the preceding chapters about the Polynesian origins and ancient remains research and rival-scientists/theories woes were really fun! It was especially interesting that his research reversed the prevailing theory that modern Europeans were mostly descended from the people from the Fertile Crescent who brought farming to Europe... but it was farming as an idea that spread through Europe, and a significant amount of farmers came, too, but mostly, modern Europeans are descendants of the paleolithic European foragers (hunter-gatherers is the outdated term). (80% foragers to 20% farmers)

I was actually disappointed when I got to the clan mother stories and had to roll my anthropology-major eyes at the awful inaccuracies in each one (he's a geneticist, not an anthropologist). For instance, he had the women being in serious trouble if their man died and they had mouths to feed, but tribes don't often function as groupings of nuclear families, where only the father provides meat for those children, and they'd become a burden on someone else if he (or their mother) was gone. In reality, the tribe would fairly easily take care of all members, and these ancient tribes were more likely to be matrilineal, and not tracking whom was the father of particular children, and making him ultimately responsible for their survival. So that was a very modern, patrilineal, Western way of imagining the situation. They were certainly entertaining little tales, and Sykes is a good storyteller, and a good writer in general, as well as a lucky geneticist to have been in the center of the ancient mitochondrial DNA work.

The chapter that covered Neanderthals is out of date, since it concludes that Neanderthals went extinct when modern humans replaced them. We know, now, that modern Europeans (and their diaspora) carry up to 4% Neanderthal DNA, so we are what became of them.

I loved that he pointed out that race is not a biological fact, and shot down the concept of racial purity - no such thing. Every grouping of humans that we think of as a race has a mixture of several strains of mtDNA and yDNA from migrations and blending. (The same goes for cultures and religions, BTW.)

I enjoyed reading this book! Couldn't put it down! The ending was especially touching.

If you've had your DNA analyzed, and you're in Ursula's clan, too, say hello! :)

This was super interesting, although most of it went over my head.

My neighbor (an extremely smart Dr) recommended this book to me after learning I was interested in my ancestry & had done a DNA test. The concept of the book fascinated me ~ that all of us can trace our roots back to Seven Women who lived thousands and thousands of years ago. My neighbor said she was the daughter of "Jasmine" and she thought our "mothers" might be the same. Of course I jumped straight in, curiosity getting the better of me to find out if that was true or not. It didn't take two pages for me to realize I might be in over my head. She either over-estimated my intelligence or thought I was up to the challenge! ha Maybe the word "science" in the title should have been my first clue?

This book is the closest thing I've read to a textbook since college. What does that say about my usual reading choices?? The first two hundred pages felt like taking (and basically were) a genetics course. I did get thru it, learning about proteins, collagen, chromosomes, DNA sequences, etc., plus the most important part, the piece of us that has remained unchanged from the beginning of mankind ~ the mitochondrial DNA. In a nutshell, that's the DNA we only get from our Mothers. I always knew "Moms" were the most pivotal part of our universe & this book, in a much more complex way, confirms that!

The last 150 pages were the most interesting to me but because they were imaginary stories of each of the seven daughters depicting what their lives were most likely like & thus much easier reading. The women lived during different periods of time in history but all of them (amazingly enough to a non-scientific person) still genetically identical to people living in Europe today! At the end of each daughters story, the author gives the regions of Europe where their mitochondrial DNA shows up most frequently now. I need to talk to my neighbor about how she is so certain she is a daughter of "Jasmine" because I cannot tell (just from comparing my little Ancestry DNA test to the regions given in the book) from which daughter I get my lineage. It could be "Jasmine" but it could be "Tara" or "Helena" or even "Ursula."

So, as interested as I was in the concept, the big revelation I was hoping for is still ambiguous to me. Reading 'The Seven Daughters of Eve' was a good stretch for my brain & most certainly not "light reading." I will retain some things from the book and like in college, I could regurgitate more talking to you the day after (like taking a test) but not sure the details will stick long term or that it matters in my day-to-day life. I'm glad there are people in this world whose brains work as well as this authors and who can unravel the mysteries of life & explain them in a way regular people can understand. We owe them a lot when it comes to cures, inventions, etc. Unfortunately that is not one of my gifts but I am proud of myself for reading the book! Next time this neighbor recommends a book to me tho, I will have to take a closer look before I rush to order it! ha ha

Science moves on quickly in the world of genetics, and in that sense, Bryan Sykes’ Seven Daughters of Eve might soon be outdated. But there’s another sense in which this science book is bound to remain timeless, as it gives the very personal account of a life in science. The author conveys an enthralling sense of excitement, tying it delightfully to the everyday—what color’s your golden hamster perhaps?—and tying that all to the mysteries of DNA.

The author’s search starts with fossils and centers on Europeans. The wonders of history and inheritance, and the happy accident of mitochondrial DNA are delightful explained. And as families of change are matched together, solving an eon-bending mystery, so the seven daughters appear.

Combining hard and soft science, the author ends the book by describing the possible lives of these seven ancestors, bringing them to life, and rewarding that search for evidence with evidence of humanity. It’s a truly absorbing journey, told in an enjoyably conversational style, and a highly recommended read.

Disclosure: A friend recommended it to me.

أرشح هذا الكتاب لأي حد درس احياء في ثانية وثالثة ثانوي. مش حد زيي كانت في أدبي وبتفرق بصعوبة بين شكل الكروموسومات وبين شكل الأميبا.

الكتاب شيق وممتع لمن يفهمه. واستمتعت ببعض الأجزاء التي تحكي عن الخلافات والمعارك حول النظريات العلمية. التعصب و"الكبر" ورفض الاعتراف بالخطأ موجود في كل مكان، حتى داخل المعمل.

لا أعرف لماذا لم استمتع بحكايات النساء السبع في نهاية الكتاب. فهى من المفترض انها ابسط الاجزاء وابعدها عن التفاصيل العلمية المعقدة التي يمتلئ بها الكتاب. احسست ان الكاتب أضاف بعدا "دراميا" في غير محله. لم اصدقه ولم احبه.
يمكن انا اللي كنت فصلت من الكتاب وقرفت وماكنش فيا طاقة أكمل.

أنا أسفة..خلاص والله عرفت إني مش المفروض أقرب من أي كتاب عن الجينات ولا الميتوكندريا أو الدي ان ايه. مفيش فايدة، عمري ما هافهم في الوراثة السما من العمى.

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