The Real Eve Page #5

I think this beach is very

important in human history...

because I think this is the place

that our ancestors crossed...

from Africa to the Yemen...

on the first step of their journey

to the rest of the world.

This was the only place that they

had a successful exit from Africa.

I believe the most important journey

the human race ever took...

started here on this beach

80,000 years ago.

One small group of people,

one exodus.

The single most important event

in the population of the world.

This is no single trudge

across the sandbanks.

This was an epic struggle

to stay alive...

not just for themselves,

but the rest of mankind.

Those who survived the crossing,

who didn't succumb...

to the dangers of the Gates of

Grief, came to a virgin land.

This is the new frontier in the

beginning of the rest of the world.

Yemen beaches were on the edge

of an almost empty world.

0ur group were the

first modern humans...

the first of their kind

outside Africa...

surviving in this place

at that time.

This group was on their own

at the edge of the new world.

Life would have been a bit better for

our migrants across into the Yemen.

For starts, the beach combing

in the Gulf of Aden...

would have been a lot better

than on the Red Sea.

Unlike the parched,

salty beaches they had left...

the Yemen was green and fertile,

full of fresh water...

game and shady oasis,

safe haven for a family to settle.

They were probably a small group.

Maybe, maximum about 250 persons.

They would have been scattered

around in family units...

of five to 20, but networking with

the other groups in the population.

Anything less than about 200

would not have been viable.

They wouldn't have been able to cope

with epidemics of disease or famine.

We know Eve and her daughters

were among the survivors...

because from them are descended

everyone in the world outside Africa.

The new science of tracking

is a breakthrough.

Using the single unbroken

mitochondrial genetic line...

cientists constructed

a vast family tree.

Pinpointing the markers,

fixing them by time and place.

It shows that once outside of

Africa, our ancestors split up.

Some going north and west,

some going east and south.

Once they had left Africa

and the Yemen...

they went their separate ways,

never to meet again.

When they first arrived here, they'd

have a selection of African lines.

A group of 250 people may have had

at least 5 or 6 different lines.

But over a thousand years...

if this population

stayed isolated...

gradually, those lines would

have reduced and reduced.

The total number of the population

would have stayed the same.

It's rather like a Welsh hill

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