Pleistocene North African genomes link Near Eastern and sub-Saharan African human populations
Marieke van de Loosdrecht, Abdeljalil Bouzouggar, Louise Humphrey, Cosimo Posth, Nick Barton, Ayinuer Aximu-Petri, Birgit Nickel, Sarah Nagel, El Hassan Talbi, Mohammed Abdeljalil El Hajraoui, Saaïd Amzazi, Jean-Jacques Hublin, Svante Pääbo, Stephan Schiffels, Matthias Meyer, Wolfgang Haak, Choongwon Jeong, Johannes Krause
North Africa is a key region for understanding human history, but the genetic history of its people is largely unknown. We present genomic data from seven 15,000-year-old modern humans, attributed to the Iberomaurusian culture, from Morocco. We find a genetic affinity with early Holocene Near Easterners, best represented by Levantine Natufians, suggesting a pre-agricultural connection between Africa and the Near East. We do not find evidence for gene flow from Paleolithic Europeans to Late Pleistocene North Africans. The Taforalt individuals derive one-third of their ancestry from sub-Saharan Africans, best approximated by a mixture of genetic components preserved in present-day West and East Africans. Thus, we provide direct evidence for genetic interactions between modern humans across Africa and Eurasia in the Pleistocene
Article, 2018