A new ancient DNA paper from Northwest Africa: Northwest African Neolithic initiated by migrants from Iberia and Levant:
In northwestern Africa, lifestyle transitioned from foraging to food production around 7,400 years ago but what sparked that change remains unclear. Archaeological data support conflicting views: (1) that migrant European Neolithic farmers brought the new way of life to North Africa1,2,3 or (2) that local hunter-gatherers adopted technological innovations4,5. The latter view is also supported by archaeogenetic data6. Here we fill key chronological and archaeogenetic gaps for the Maghreb, from Epipalaeolithic to Middle Neolithic, by sequencing the genomes of nine individuals (to between 45.8- and 0.2-fold genome coverage). Notably, we trace 8,000 years of population continuity and isolation from the Upper Palaeolithic, via the Epipaleolithic, to some Maghrebi Neolithic farming groups. However, remains from the earliest Neolithic contexts showed mostly European Neolithic ancestry. We suggest that farming was introduced by European migrants and was then rapidly adopted by local groups. During the Middle Neolithic a new ancestry from the Levant appears in the Maghreb, coinciding with the arrival of pastoralism in the region, and all three ancestries blend together during the Late Neolithic. Our results show ancestry shifts in the Neolithization of northwestern Africa that probably mirrored a heterogeneous economic and cultural landscape, in a more multifaceted process than observed in other regions.
Basically, the ancestors of the Berbers seem to be a mix of indigenous people whose ancestors were Eurasians who arrived during the Last Glacial Maximum, Early European Farmers (Anatolian) and Levantine farmers/pastoralists, in that order of timing, but reverse order of contribution. To me it is interesting that there is no Sub-Saharan African ancestry in the earliest populations, indicating that the Sahara was really not habitable for humans for much of the Ice Age.
Jada Pinkett Smith just had a mental breakdown and Cheikh Anta Diop is howling from the netherworld
“To me it is interesting that there is no Sub-Saharan African ancestry in the earliest populations”
The Iberomaurusian were a mix of something Dzudzuana-like and ANA. ANA is of course very SSA-like. So SSAs were there during the UP.
Iberomaurusians (represented by Taforalt and now others) plot similarly to East Africans (in terms of their excess shift to SSAs relative to Eurasians). Why do you think this is the case?
The KTG001 Cardial Pottery individual probably has some sub-saharan african ancestry.
Wrong conclusion and dumb analysis. Taforalt had ANA which of course came from SSA.
@Srinivas
ANA is hypothesized to be intermediate between Eurasians and SSA proper. I wouldn’t say that it came from SSA, but its also not non-African. It is what Dienekes would have called an Afrasian.
Not really. As a few others have already pointed out, Epipalaeolithic North Africans (represented by Taforalt who cluster close to some East Africans) shared deep ancestry with other Africans via their ANA ancestry, which made up approximately half of their total ancestry. ANA is distinct but it forms a clade with the bulk of the ancestry present in non-hunter-gatherers south of the Sahara, including West Africans. But you’re correct in saying that the Sahara became more of a barrier during the Neolithic, since most of them gene-flow into North Africa since then came from Southern Europe and the Levant, diminishing the region’s genetic affinities to the rest of the continent.