Scientists discover genomic ancestry of Stone Age North Africans from Morocco

[Kamal900]

Ancient nuclear DNA from 15,000-year-old modern humans from Morocco, the oldest ever recovered from Africa, shows dual genetic ancestry to ancient Near Eastern and to sub-Saharan African populations
Date: March 15, 2018
Source: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Summary:
An international team of researchers have sequenced DNA from individuals from Morocco dating to approximately 15,000 years ago. This is the oldest nuclear DNA from Africa ever successfully analyzed. The study shows that the individuals, dating to the Late Stone Age, had a genetic heritage that was in part similar to ancient Levantine Natufians and an uncharacterized sub-Saharan African lineage to which modern West Africans are genetically closest.

An international team of researchers, led by Johannes Krause and Choongwon Jeong from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (Jena, Germany), and Abdeljalil Bouzouggar from the Institut National des Sciences de l'Archéologie et du Patrimoine (Rabat, Morocco) and including scientists from the Mohammed V University in Rabat, the Natural History Museum in London, University of Oxford, Université Mohammed Premier in Oujda and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, have sequenced DNA from individuals from Morocco dating to approximately 15,000 years ago, as published in Science. This is the oldest nuclear DNA from Africa ever successfully analyzed. The individuals, dating to the Late Stone Age, had a genetic heritage that was in part similar to Near Eastern populations and in part related to sub-Saharan African populations.

North Africa is an important area in the history of the evolution of our species. The geography of North Africa also makes it an interesting area for studying how humans expanded out of Africa. It is part of the African continent, but the Sahara desert presents a substantial barrier to travel to and from southern regions. Similarly, it is part of the Mediterranean region, but in the past the sea could have presented a barrier to interaction with others as well. "A better understanding of the history of North Africa is critical to understanding the history of our species," explains co-author Saaïd Amzazi of Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco.

In order to address this, the team looked at a burial site in Grotte des Pigeons, near Taforalt in Morocco, associated with the Later Stone Age Iberomaurusian culture. The Iberomaurusians are believed to be the first in the area to produce finer stone tools known as microliths. "Grotte des Pigeons is a crucial site to understanding the human history of north-western Africa, since modern humans frequently inhabited this cave intensively during prolonged periods throughout the Middle and Later Stone Age," explains co-author Louise Humphrey of the Natural History Museum in London. "Around 15,000 years ago there is evidence for more intensive use of the site and the Iberomaurusians started to bury their dead at the back of the cave."

15,000-year-old nuclear DNA is the oldest recovered in Africa

The researchers analyzed DNA from nine individuals from Taforalt using advanced sequencing and analytical methods. They were able to recover mitochondrial data from seven of the individuals and genome-wide nuclear data from five of the individuals. Because of the age of the samples, at approximately 15,000 years old, and the poor preservation characteristic of the area, this is an unprecedented achievement. "This is the first and the oldest Pleistocene DNA of our species recovered in Africa," explains co-senior author Abdeljalil Bouzouggar. "Due to challenging conditions for DNA preservation, relatively few ancient genomes have been recovered from Africa and none of them so far predate the introduction of agriculture in North Africa," explains first author Marieke van de Loosdrecht of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. "Successful genome reconstruction was possible by using specialized laboratory methods to retrieve highly degraded DNA, and relatively new analysis methods to characterize the genetic profiles of these individuals."

The researchers found two major components to the genetic heritage of the individuals. About two-thirds of their heritage is related to contemporaneous populations from the Levant and about one-third is most similar to modern sub-Saharan Africans, in particular West Africans.

As early as the Stone Age, human populations had links that stretched across continents

The high proportion of Near Eastern ancestry shows that the connection between North Africa and the Near East began much earlier than many previously thought. Although the connections between these regions have been shown in previous studies for more recent time periods, it was not generally believed that humans were interacting across these distances during the Stone Age. "Our analysis shows that North Africa and the Near East, even at this early time, were part of one region without much of a genetic barrier," explains co-senior author Choongwon Jeong.

Although the Sahara did present a physical barrier, there was also clearly interaction happening at this time. The strong connection between the Taforalt individuals and sub-Saharan populations shows that interactions across this vast desert were occurring much earlier than was previously thought. In fact, the proportion of sub-Saharan ancestry of the Taforalt individuals, one-third, is a higher percentage than found in modern populations in Morocco and many other North African populations.

Sub-Saharan heritage from a previously unknown ancient population

Though the scientists found clear markers linking the heritage in question to sub-Saharan Africa, no previously identified population has the precise combination of genetic markers that the Taforalt individuals had. While some aspects match modern Hadza hunter-gatherers from East Africa and others match modern West Africans, neither of these groups has the same combination of characteristics as the Taforalt individuals. Consequently, the researchers cannot be sure exactly where this heritage comes from. One possibility is that this heritage may come from a population that no longer exists. However, this question would need further investigation.

"Clearly, human populations were interacting much more with groups from other, more distant areas than was previously assumed," states co-senior author Johannes Krause, director of the Department of Archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. "This illustrates the ability of ancient genetics to add to our understanding of human history." Further studies in this region could help to clarify more about when and how these different populations interacted and where they came from.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...0315141221.htm

[Kamal900]

bump

[StonyArabia]

The SSA admixture in North Africans is ancient and it's stablized over time. Not all of the so called SSA in North Africans is from the slave trade. This genetic test just shows that North Africans have not changed much, and that they looked European and got admixed with Arab and SSA's is false. Since most North Africans, especially Moroccans have non-existent Arabian ancestry. Not to mention aside from the admixture, that climate also plays a big role in how people would look like. If you visit the Atlas Mountains the Berbers there don't look European. Good study. This also shows that North Africans were never Black like how Afrobozos would like to say, but rather that North Africans are ancient population of Near Eastern Eurasians who got admixed with SSA's in antiquity meaning that the Berbers were mixed in stabilized fashion and they are largely "Caucasoid". Thus ancient and modern North Africans are the same unlike what Eurocentrist morons or Afrobozos would like to claim.

[Kamal900]

The SSA admixture in North Africans is ancient and it's stablized over time. Not all of the so called SSA in North Africans is from the slave trade. This genetic test just shows that North Africans have not changed much, and that they looked European and got admixed with Arab and SSA's is false. Since most North Africans, especially Moroccans have non-existent Arabian ancestry. Not to mention aside from the admixture, that climate also plays a big role in how people would look like. If you visit the Atlas Mountains the Berbers there don't look European. Good study. This also shows that North Africans were never Black like how Afrobozos would like to say, but rather that North Africans are ancient population of Near Eastern Eurasians who got admixed with SSA's in antiquity meaning that the Berbers were mixed in stabilized fashion and they are largely "Caucasoid". Thus ancient and modern North Africans are the same unlike what Eurocentrist morons or Afrobozos would like to claim.

Indeed, and I've been to Morocco as well. Arabians are genetically more closer to Egyptians and Berbers than to Persians, Turks and other west asiatics due to them in having ancestry from the Levant that was not yet heavily admixed with the migrants coming from Iran and Anatolia which made the Levantines more shifted towards west Asia than Arabians and Egyptians do. Today, the Levant can be divided into two groupings based on their admixture, and Muslims have more foreign admixture than their Christian and Druze counterparts which is why Palestinians, Jordanians and Syrians as a whole are more closer to Arabia and North Africa than to west asia.

[Cosmo Zero]

The SSA admixture in North Africans is ancient and it's stablized over time. Not all of the so called SSA in North Africans is from the slave trade. This genetic test just shows that North Africans have not changed much, and that they looked European and got admixed with Arab and SSA's is false. Since most North Africans, especially Moroccans have non-existent Arabian ancestry. Not to mention aside from the admixture, that climate also plays a big role in how people would look like. If you visit the Atlas Mountains the Berbers there don't look European. Good study. This also shows that North Africans were never Black like how Afrobozos would like to say, but rather that North Africans are ancient population of Near Eastern Eurasians who got admixed with SSA's in antiquity meaning that the Berbers were mixed in stabilized fashion and they are largely "Caucasoid". Thus ancient and modern North Africans are the same unlike what Eurocentrist morons or Afrobozos would like to claim.

lol are you guys for real!

i mean seriously did any one of you both even bother to read beyond the title?

if you did you would've known that those taforalt individuals has for the most part almost nothing to do with modern day berbers or they're ancestors who's apparently comes from the east much later and didn't reach north west africa up until 7.5 kya or so, successfully replacing the iberomaurusians (that if they weren't already gone or extinct from the region by then).

to quite understand this simple fact all you have to do is to compare the Taforalt (upper Pleistocene) Y-dna from this paper with IAM (early neolithic moroccan) from 2017 ''neolithization of north africa'' paper aka the direct ancestral core population of modern day berbers.

1- Taforalt : Y-DNA (L618,M78)

2- IAM : Y-DNA (L19,M81)

none of the Taforalt individuals carried any of IAM upper direct clades like E-Z827 (TMRCA 23800 ybp) for L19.

E1b1b-tree.png

now giving the fact E-Z827 (TMRCA 23800 ybp) is the direct parent clade of both levantine natufian Z830 (TMRCA 19200 ybp) and L19 (TMRCA 14000 ybp) would logically suggest a very early neolithic or even pre-neolithic east to west migration pattern of E-Z827 eventually L19, in this case the capsians are the best candidate to represent this -east to west- proto-berber newcomers aka IAM L19,M81.

in other words genealogically neither modern berbers (M81) or they're neolithic ancestors (L19) are descendants of the iberomaurusians who were M78, if we were to pinpoint a potential modern relatives to this taforalt individuals then the egyptians alongside some europeans would be the right choice since both fall into M78 direct subclades (like v13, v12 etc..).

so ''literally'' any similarly between Taforalt and IAM (eventually modern berbers) would strictly be the resembles between some MT-DNA branches ,yet this also doesn't necessary mean that taforalt have contributed to IAM through Mtdna rather than just some shared common ancestor from the past in the form of U6 and M1 ,this is pretty clear especially that IAM similar to it's natufian sibling and unlike taforalt had no SSA ''like'' ancestry / affinities at all.

it is worth mentioning that, compared to current North Africans samples, IAM and KEB do not show any subsaharan African ancestry, suggesting that trans-Saharan migrations occurred after Neolithic times.www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/09/21/191569

im sorry to say this but ironically you both are as much ignorant and naive especially with this ''mixed stabilized berber'' nonsense as those Afrobozos or eurocentrists your laughing at
a little advice if i may, next time read carefully beyond the title and avoid mixing scientific contents with unobjective personal based beliefs.

[Cosmo Zero]

concerning this ''ssa like'' component in taforalt there's only a two logical possibilities i can think of, it's either something related to the pre-iberomaurusians aterians or some ancestry from some outer E group who's at that time had nothing to do with SSA since ''E'' carrying SSA's weren't around until the holocene when this ghost group altered significantly their ancestry probably via migrating south the sahara.

Taforalt individuals may represent the evidence that many been suspecting / expecting to solve the story of how and when E replaced the paleo-african proto-negroid y-dna's (B - A) in sub-saharan africa (more likely in the holocene) ,this is very obvious simply because :

- the colossal age of taforalt 15.000 ya predates the earliest ancestors of E1a SSA populations (including the modern one used as a reference) by almost a 9000 year.

- all prehistoric ancient tested subsaharan remains were found belonging to paleo-african y-dna's A or B while E was literally absent.

- the iberomaurusians were on craniometric level identical to the ancient eurasian populations.

in other words ''the ghost'' populations that supposedly both Taforalt and the modern SSA's they used as a reference in this ''paper'' shared an ancestry from, had probably nothing to do with today's subsaharans - at the time 15.000 ya or prior to the holocene -, it seems this ancient ghost populations replaced / altered - partly but significantly - much of today's SSA's ancestry.

"We are peeling back the first layers of the agricultural transition south of the Sahara," said Skoglund. "Already we can see that there was a whole different landscape of populations just 2,000 or 3,000 years ago."
"It looks like there was a complete population replacement," said Reich. "We haven't seen clear evidence for an event like this anywhere else." https://phys.org/news/2017-09-ancien...an-africa.html

unfortunately the ''paper'' didn't shed any light on this important part!! instead for some reason the authors used modern populations to test the ancestral background of a 15.000 year old individuals while it's logically and obviously the other way around , luckily they also admits that none of present day or even Holocene SSA's are a good proxies for this SSA like component .

None of the present-day or ancient Holocene African groups serve as a good proxy for this unknown ancestry, because adding them as the third source is still insufficient to match the model to the Taforalt gene pool.http://http://science.sciencemag.org...cience.aar8380

on appearance taforalt were a brownish to tanned people (like much of pre-neolithic eurasian populations) with brown eyes and straight hair.

For all Taforalt individuals we find the derived homozygous AA genotype for SNP rs17646946 in this gene, which has been associated with straighter hair in Europeans (allelic effect (β) = 0.4-0.5, explained variance = 6.11%)

alot of mysterious things need to be solved ,taforalt maybe the first indication that the Hg E may have a west asian or north African origin, we could have a confirmation if only researchers would to be lucky enough to successfully sequence any N.A or west asian remains ranging from the early to the middle Upper Paleolithic, until then we should keep in mind that ''taforalt'' and the ''natufians'' are now the oldest E1b1b (even e1b1) remains to be found ,so the whole Hg E maybe next.

[Bellbeaking]

The SSA admixture in North Africans is ancient and it's stablized over time. Not all of the so called SSA in North Africans is from the slave trade. This genetic test just shows that North Africans have not changed much, and that they looked European and got admixed with Arab and SSA's is false. Since most North Africans, especially Moroccans have non-existent Arabian ancestry. Not to mention aside from the admixture, that climate also plays a big role in how people would look like. If you visit the Atlas Mountains the Berbers there don't look European. Good study. This also shows that North Africans were never Black like how Afrobozos would like to say, but rather that North Africans are ancient population of Near Eastern Eurasians who got admixed with SSA's in antiquity meaning that the Berbers were mixed in stabilized fashion and they are largely "Caucasoid". Thus ancient and modern North Africans are the same unlike what Eurocentrist morons or Afrobozos would like to claim.

North Africans don't descend from these people. Most ancestry comes from later waves, with much less SSA

[Bellbeaking]

The SSA admixture in North Africans is ancient and it's stablized over time. Not all of the so called SSA in North Africans is from the slave trade. This genetic test just shows that North Africans have not changed much, and that they looked European and got admixed with Arab and SSA's is false. Since most North Africans, especially Moroccans have non-existent Arabian ancestry. Not to mention aside from the admixture, that climate also plays a big role in how people would look like. If you visit the Atlas Mountains the Berbers there don't look European. Good study. This also shows that North Africans were never Black like how Afrobozos would like to say, but rather that North Africans are ancient population of Near Eastern Eurasians who got admixed with SSA's in antiquity meaning that the Berbers were mixed in stabilized fashion and they are largely "Caucasoid". Thus ancient and modern North Africans are the same unlike what Eurocentrist morons or Afrobozos would like to claim.

turns out that west africans are part North african, hence the similarity is from north africans down to west africa, rather than west africa in these talafort people

https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...asian-ancestry

cool cool cool cool co

[Synapsid]

I joined this forum due to this thread post I accidentally came across in google search toppo900! I am quite new here but have been lurking for time. I wanted to clarify that according to Lazaridis, the Yoruba DNA samples are about 12% Iberomaurusian-like/Taforalt-like, and he models Taforalt (the Iberomaurusians from Northern Morocco) as about half (45-50%) ANA and about half (50-55%) Eurasian. The 'Eurasian' is Dzudzuana related which can be modelled as 73% Common West Eurasian/UHG, which is releated to the mesolithic WHG of Europe and 27% Basal Eurasian which split off from mainstream 'Crown' Eurasians around 80,000 kya. The ANA (Ancient North African) population is not sub-Saharan African (ANA is native to North Africa and distinct from other populations) but is distinct from OOA/Eurasian population, and is more basal than BE/Basal Eurasian. So the Yoruba, according to Lazaridis would seem to be about 6-7% Eurasian (rather than 12%).