How one ancient woman links human mitochondrial DNA

A closer look

Because mitochondrial DNA is passed down exclusively from the maternal side with very minimal shuffling, scientists can aggressively trace the genetic paper trail backward. They eventually hit a singular female ancestor who lived thousands of years ago, whose cellular power plants effectively out-reproduced everyone else's. She was not the only human alive, just the only one whose highly specific mitochondrial code completely flooded the future gene pool.