What is the origin of Afroasiatic peoples?

[Mars06]

The Afroasiatic languages are spoken by people as diverse as Arabs, Berbers, Ethiopians, Somalis, and Jews. We know quite well the story of the Indo-European peoples - beginning in the Pontic Steppe, spreading into Europe and India, and mixing with the local populace in those regions. But what do we know of the history of the Afroasiatic peoples? The fact that Eastern Europeans tend to cluster between caucasoids and negroids leads me to think that a MENA-like people spread through the Middle East, North Africa, and East Africa - mixing with negroid peoples in East Africa.

[Smeagol]

Afroasiatic languages either originated in the Near East, or Northeast Africa (probably Egypt). It isn't certain.

[Zroota]

I'd say the Proto Afro-Asiatic language was first spoken in the Levant around 9,000 - 11,000 years ago. It was then dispersed into North Africa and eastern Africa 5,000 years ago or so. I just think, if the homeland of PAA were in Africa, Semitic-speaking Near Easterners and West Asians would look heavily SSA-influenced even to this day (and it's not like we mixed much with Europeans and Indo-Iranians). And SSA genes are quite dominant. Proto Semitic was also spoken in the Near East and was then spread to North Africa and the Horn of Africa. So it makes sense that Afro-Asiatic did the same thing as well.

The first Proto Afro-Asiatic speakers would have been Natufians (12,000 to 9,500 BC) who came from what is now Israel and Lebanon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natufian_culture

[Numidia]

Egypt

[Mens-Sarda]

Perhaps they originated in the Nile valley or in the Green Sahara, and when Sahara became a desert those peoples moved to different directions. Berbers to North West, Egyptians to East, Ethiopians to South East, etc.etc.