The first DNA profiles from ancient people who lived in a lush area of Africa
Are the Ancient and Present-Day Sub-Saharan Populations Distant from the Takarkori and Taforalt Groups?
Researchers have been able to extract ancient DNA from two women who died in Libya around 7,000 years ago to reconstruct the beginnings of the early Saharans. The women’s DNA profiles, described in a study published on 2 April in Nature1, represent the first full Saharan genomes from the African Humid Period — and reveal that the people were remarkably isolated from other African populations.
Given the Takarkori’s high share of genes that are related to other human groups, we then looked into the matter of whether the Takarkori’s genes shared more with other groups than the Taf. The statistics f4 represent ancient and present- day groups from Africa and Eurasia. We obtained positive values for the Taforalt group in Africa, which suggest they may share more of the same genes than Takarkori does. None of the ancient or modern groups tested had a negative signal indicating affinity with Takarkori than Taforalt. Notably, both ancient and modern sub-Saharan groups, who are mostly unadmixed with Eurasian groups, yielded no significant value (|Z| < 3), suggesting that these groups are equally distant from both the Takarkori and Taforalt groups (Fig. 3b and Supplementary Data 4). Moreover, when running statistics f4(Chimp, Takarkori; X, Taforalt), we found significantly positive values for every population X, indicating that Takarkori shares more alleles with Taforalt than any other group (Extended Data Fig. 5 and Supplementary Data 4).
The Takarkori rock shelter is in southwestern Libya. Between 2003 and 2007, archaeologists uncovered the remains of 15 people who were buried between 8,900 and 4,800 years ago at Takarkori. Two of the corpses — both belonging to women who lived between 7,000 and 6,000 years ago — had naturally mummified.
It is important to explore places that are protected from the elements.
Ancient DNA in the Sahara Desert: The Cold Dark Side of the African Humid Period–An Unlikely Time for Evolutionary Biology in North Africa
The inhospitable landscape of the Sahara Desert wasn’t always as dry as it is today. Between 14,500 and 5,000 years ago, the area was unrecognizable, transformed into a lush savannah by an unusually wet interval called the African Humid Period. The landscape was once a green one, but it was lost to sand for a long time.
It is hard to get ancient genomes from North Africa. Europe and Asia are the main places where palaeogenetic work is done. Ancient DNA is especially rare in the Sahara, where high temperatures and strong ultraviolet light quickly degrade genetic material in remains.
Researchers claim to have extracted ancient DNA from two women who died around 7,000 years ago in Libya to reconstruct the beginnings of the Saharans. The DNA profiles represent the first full Saharan genomes from the African Humid Period. Researchers said the DNA profiles represent the first full Saharan genomes from the African Humid Period and reveal that the people were remarkably isolated from other African populations.