According to the Bible, Adam and Eve were the first man and woman on Earth.

Said to be made out of dust and to have lived in the Garden of Eden, the two figures are central to the belief that everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. 

While this might seem far-fetched, there is now a growing body of evidence which suggests that at least some parts of the story could be true.

Archaeologists have found surprising signs that Eden was not only a real place but could have been the birthplace of civilisation as we know it.

Likewise, biologists have shown that all humans alive today really do share a single common ancestor.

However, making the Bible fit with modern science requires throwing out a lot of the traditional story.

That could mean saying goodbye to the notion that God created Adam and Eve, or even questioning whether our biblical ancestors were Homo Sapiens.

A real Garden of Eden 

In the Bible, Adam and Eve live in a place called the Garden of Eden, a beautiful land of plenty and abundance.

Interestingly, the Bible also provides a relatively precise description of where this mystical garden is located.

In Genesis, the Bible states that a river flows through Eden and divides into four branches: The Pishon, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates.

Of these, the Tigris and the Euphrates are well known and still flow through modern-day Iraq.

However, the Gihon and the Pishon are far more obscure and their locations, if they still exist, are unknown.

This has led to a plethora of suggestions as to where the Garden of Eden might have really been, ranging from Iran and Mongolia to Jackson County Missouri.

However, the most promising theory is that the Garden of Eden is located in an area called Mesopotamia.