The idea that mankind was spawned from one pair of humans was previously thought to be far-fetched but some elements could now ring true, according to scientists
Adam and Eve may have actually existed, some scientists now believe.
The biblical duo were said to be made from dust and lived in the paradise of the Garden of Eden. But boffs have found evidence that humans perhaps did descend from a single set of ancestors, just like the pair who feature in the Book of Genesis.
The idea that mankind was spawned from one pair of humans was previously thought to be far-fetched but some elements could now ring true.
The ancestors who passed on the male Y chromosomes and female mitochondrial DNA to today’s humans were thought to have lived tens of thousands of years apart.
But two major studies of modern humans suggest they may have lived around the same time after all.
A team at the University of Sassari, Italy, suggested that Adam lived 180,000–200,000 years ago, similar to initial estimates of Eve’s age.
And based on biblical descriptions archaeologists reckon Eden is in an area known as Mesopotamia, what is now eastern Syria, northwestern Turkey, and most of Iraq.
Professor Eric Cline, a classical and biblical archaeologist from George Washington University, argues that this theory matches the evidence.
Writing in his book ‘From Eden to Exile’, Professor Cline said: “This makes some sense from a textual point of view.
“Not only does the biblical account say that the garden lay “in the east”, meaning to the east of Israel, but it also mentions the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in connection with the Garden of Eden.”
However a competing theory, published in the journal Nature, believes Africa’s Kalahari Desert is the “the ancestral homeland of all humans alive today”.
Geneticists studied the history of one of the oldest DNA lineages on Earth known as L0, which is passed down through females.
Study author Vanessa Hayes of the University of Sydney, previously said: “We’ve known for a long time that humans originated in Africa and roughly 200,000 years ago. But what we hadn’t known until this study was where, exactly this homeland was.”
For more incredible stories from the Daily Star, make sure you sign up to one of our newsletters