The Seven Daughters of Eve

The Seven Daughters of Eve (2001, ISBN 0-393-02018-5) is a book by that presents the theory of  to a general audience. Sykes explains the principles of and, the particularities of mitochondrial genetics, and analyses of ancient  to genetically link modern humans to  ancestors.

Following the developments of mitochondrial genetics, Sykes traces back human migrations, discusses the and refutes 's theory of the  origin of the ns, which opposed the theory of their origin in Indonesia. He also describes the use of mitochondrial DNA in identifying the remains of, and in assessing the genetic makeup of modern Europe.

The title of the book comes from one of the principal achievements of mitochondrial genetics, which is the classification of all modern Europeans into 7 groups, the . Each haplogroup is defined by set of characteristic mutations on the mitochondrial genome, and can be traced along a person's maternal line to a specific prehistoric woman. Sykes refers to these women as "clan mothers", though these women did not all live concurrently, and indeed some "clan mothers" are descended from others (although not maternally). All these women in turn shared a common maternal ancestor, the.

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". This latter half generally met with mixed reviews in comparison with the first part.

Mitochondrial haplogroups in The Seven Daughters of Eve
The seven "clan mothers" mentioned by Sykes each correspond to one (or more) human mitochondrial haplogroups.


 * Ursula: corresponds to (excluding its subgroup K)
 * Xenia: corresponds to
 * Helena: corresponds to
 * Velda: corresponds to
 * Tara: corresponds to
 * Katrine: corresponds to
 * Jasmine: corresponds to

Additional daughters
Sykes claims there are seven major mitochondrial lineages for modern ans but others put the number at 10-12. These additional "daughters" generally include haplogroups, and. A recent paper re-mapped European haplogroups as H, J, K,, T, U4, U5, V, X and W.

Likewise, Sykes has invented names for an additional 29 "clan mothers" worldwide, each corresponding to a different identified by geneticists: "Fufei, Ina, /Ai, Yumi, Nene, Naomi, Una, Uta, Ulrike, Uma, Ulla, Ulaana, Lara, Lamia, Lalamika, Latasha, Malaxshmi, Emiko, Gaia, Chochmingwu/Chie, Djigonasee/Sachi, Makeda, Lingaire, Lubaya, Limber, Lila, Lungile, Latifa and Layla."

Japanese clans
Sykes is currently using the same methods to identify the nine "clan mothers" of Japanese ancestry, "all different from the seven European equivalents."