I don't think the difference you're talking about is real. "Eve" is mitochondrial Eve, the most recent direct female-line ancestor-- the first human every woman can say was her mother's mother's mother's et cetera. There's a corresponding Y-chromosomal Adam; they probably lived 100-200,000 years ago, but not at the same time.

But of course if you're descended from her, you're descended from her parents, and her mate's parents too; nobody came from just one person. Each one out of our millions of common ancestors is an Adam or Eve by the popular definition: Every human being alive is descended from them. If they had not conceived, no one currently alive would exist. There was never a biblically singular Adam and Eve.

So, the first person who was the MRCA-with female lineage only, ie the earliest woman who was the female ancestor of all living people, was 100,000 years ago.

But the earliest ancestor (female / male / mixed lineage) was only 3000 years ago.

(i.e. the first, had to have daughters only, the second, more recent could have daughter then grandson then great-grandson etc)

So, 3000 years before we can say anyone definitely was the ancestor of all, and there would be a lot of them. And 100,000 years before its female lineage. Then pretty much everyone is a common ancestor, back to plankton. And Dinosaurs!

More or less, except 3000 years ago travel was far more of an issue. But, somewhere in the ~2,500-30,000 years it's probably true.

Also, with a population of 1 million people a female line 'wining' is much more likely than with a ~6 billion people population that probably will not happen again for a vary long time without some awesome mutation.

> the first human every woman can say was her...

I think that's a typo, should be: "...first woman every human...". All of us have Mitochondrial Eve as our matrilineal MRCA, not just those with two X chromosomes.

Yeah, good catch. I was hoping no one would notice that goof :)

Yes this is the key - people won't have just one ancestor but many millions.

> More specifically, imagine the simplest case of a population of a constant size - say a million (the approximate size of the Holy Land at the time of Jesus).

The total human population was greater than 1 million.

You're referring to the year 0 CE, he's referring to the advent of agriculture around 10000 BCE.