![]() ![]() Back in the 1980s, there was a great deal of buzz about a “mitochondrial Eve”, the putative common ancestor of our entire species. ![]() As a result, such distant times can become a vast canvas for the working out of our collective fantasies. It is very difficult to resist the temptation to make up stories about what might have happened: stories which necessarily reflect our own fears, desires, obsessions and concerns. If we think on a scale of, say, the last 3m years, there actually was a time when someone, after all, did have to light a fire, cook a meal or perform a marriage ceremony for the first time. It is simply to observe that the two fulfil somewhat similar functions. This is not to cast aspersions on the scientific rigour or value of these accounts. In some ways, accounts of “human origins” play a similar role for us today as myth did for ancient Greeks or Polynesians. ![]()
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