Substack cometh, and lo it is good. (Pricing)

The Green Sahara and Fulani

Echoes from the last Green Sahara: whole genome analysis of Fulani, a key population to unveil the genetic evolutionary history of Africa:

Background The Sahelian Fulani are the largest nomadic pastoral ethnic group. Their origins are still largely unknown and their Eurasian genetic component is usually explained by recent admixture events with northern African groups. However, it has also been proposed that Fulani may be the descendants of ancient groups settled in the Sahara during its last Green phase (12000-5000 BP), as also suggested by Y chromosome results. Results We produced 23 high-coverage (30 X) whole genomes from Fulani individuals from 8 Sahelian countries, plus 17 samples from other African groups and 3 Europeans as controls, for a total of 43 new whole genome sequences. These data have been compared with 814 published modern whole genomes and analyzed together with relevant published ancient individuals (for a total of > 1800 samples). These analyses showed that the non-sub-Saharan genetic ancestry component of Fulani cannot be only explained by recent admixture events, but it could be shaped at least in part by older events by events more ancient than previously reported, possibly tracing its origin to the last Green Sahara. Conclusions According to our results, Fulani may be the descendants of Saharan cattle herders settled in that area during the last Green Sahara. The exact ancestry composition of such ghost Saharan population(s) cannot be completely unveiled from modern genomes only, but the joint analysis with the available African ancient samples suggested a similarity between ancient Saharans and Late Neolithic Moroccans.

Two points

– Lots of suspicion about this before. Basically, a West Eurasian-related population (admixed) was extant in the Sahara for the first half of the Holocene.

– I don’t think they’ve totally figured out Afro-Asiatic, and these results make me more open to the idea that Afro-Asiatic came from the Sahara, not less

5 thoughts on “The Green Sahara and Fulani

  1. I used genei (AI) to breakdown studies like this into itemized summaries. It was pretty good, but now that I see Chat GPT plus is launching plug-ins, I’m particularly interested in Wolfram. I believe it will allow the AI to assist in research among many other task, graphical visualization of data. Razib, have you gotten a chance to use the plugins?

  2. -Local Moroccan Iberomaurusian descendants
    -Sea faring Cardial pottery
    -Other Sahara continental route

    Pick your choice for which is the real Afro-Asiatic source.

  3. I am quoting Dienekes in my prelude observation –

    “Not to mention that the evolutionary mutation rate is wrongly applied to every case under the sun, and that Y-STR based age estimation in general has been conclusively shown to be a rather futile exercise.”

    It seems to me that we should be looking toward an communal E1b* source that was at one time established along much of the Mediterranean rim, that moves inland as it becomes more confident in the ability to survive without access to the sea.

    I am sure that some drastic chasm has likely been asserted between M-123 and M-2, but in reality is M-123 not more likely Natufian Levantine that simply combines with incoming J1 / J2 ?

    Probably one of the more convincing facts related to establishing that the Habiru were a class and not originally a people, for instance, is the co-predominance of these three paternal elements in affected Levantines.

    You have y line confirmation of what we know from the cuneiform historical record,
    which establishes north Semitic, Mesopotamian South Semitic, and indigenous Levantine as the predominate paternal legacy origins, but none dominate exclusively or overwhelmingly.

    Compare that with a true single ancestry national people – Ireland / even today over 90%+ L21,
    Germany / 100% U106 in Allemanic confederation samples.

  4. Two linguist efriends reject Afro-Asiatic as a genetic family, but do think that similarities are possible due to contact. 4th millennium BC Nile basin around Dongola seems like a possible contact point – proto-Cushites were there prior to their migration to the Horn, Egypt not too far north, and proto-Chadic Leiterband Culture was on the Yellow Nile which fed into the main Nile just to the south. Admittedly Semitic is poorly explainable by this theory.

    It would be illuminating to get some Leiterband DNA. Their lifestyle was pastoralist and believed to be influenced or derived from the northwest, but their pottery style looks pretty similar to that of their predecessors. My suspicion is that the also pastoral Tenerean culture were their forefathers (though not foremothers), and that Tenereans were part of a pre-4400 BC Cardial Ware migration from Iberia into the Sahara in early 5th millennium BC that mixed extensively with the Iberomaurusian descendants.

  5. “I don’t think they’ve totally figured out Afro-Asiatic, and these results make me more open to the idea that Afro-Asiatic came from the Sahara, not less”

    I am quite comfortable that Afro-Asiatic languages and Y-DNA E probably have African origins, quite possibly pre-Neolithic era origins.

    But, the Fulani ancestors seem like a poor fit to proto-Afro-Asiatic speakers. Substate influences in Berber suggest that prior to Berber expansion ca. 3700 BCE (around the end of the Green Sahara era around the time that the camel was domesticated in North Africa), the people of Northeast Africa probably spoke ergative languages.

    Also, while most attested ergative languages are from areas that have Caucasian hunter-gather/Caucasian-Iranian farmer autosomal DNA, something which is entirely absent in the Fulani people, the other notable ergative languages in the region are the Vasconic languages (of which only Basque survives today).

    So, I think it is more likely that the Fulani ancestors from the Green Sahara era spoke languages related to Basque than it is that they spoke Afro-Asiatic languages, prior to language shifts to, for example, Berber, Phoenician, African Latin, and Arabic.

Comments are closed.