quote:One of the greatest transitions in the human story was the change from hunter-gatherer to farmer. How farming traditions expanded from their birthplace in the Fertile Crescent has always been a matter of contention. Two models were proposed, one involving the movement of people and the other based on the transmission of ideas. Over the last decade, paleogenomics has been instrumental in settling long-disputed archaeological questions, including those surrounding the Neolithic revolution. Compared to the extensive genetic work done on Europe and the Near East, the Neolithic transition in North Africa, including the Maghreb, remains largely uncharacterized. Archaeological evidence suggests this process may have happened through an in situ development from Epipaleolithic communities, or by demic diffusion from the Eastern Mediterranean shores or Iberia. In fact, Neolithic pottery in North Africa strongly resembles that of European cultures like Cardial and Andalusian Early Neolithic, the southern-most early farmer culture from Iberia. Here, we present the first analysis of individuals' genome sequences from early and late Neolithic sites in Morocco, as well as Andalusian Early Neolithic individuals. We show that Early Neolithic Moroccans are distinct from any other reported ancient individuals and possess an endemic element retained in present-day Maghrebi populations, indicating long-term genetic continuity in the region. Among ancient populations, early Neolithic Moroccans share affinities with Levantine Natufian hunter-gatherers (~9,000 BCE) and Pre-Pottery Neolithic farmers (~6,500 BCE). Late Neolithic (~3,000 BCE) Moroccan remains, in comparison, share an Iberian component of a prominent European-wide demic expansion, supporting theories of trans-Gibraltar gene flow. Finally, the Andalusian Early Neolithic samples share the same genetic composition as the Cardial Mediterranean Neolithic culture that reached Iberia ~5,500 BCE. The cultural and genetic similarities of the Iberian Neolithic cultures with that of North African Neolithic sites further reinforce the model of an Iberian intrusion into the Maghreb.
And from the text of the paper itself (p. 6):
quote:Finally, phenotypic predictions based on genetic variants of known effects agree with our estimates of global ancestry. IAM people [Early Neolithic Moroccans] do not possess any of the European SNPs associated with light pigmentation, and most likely had dark skin and eyes. IAM samples present ancestral alleles for pigmentation-associated variants present in SLC24A5 (rs1426654), SLC45A2 (rs16891982) and OCA2 (rs16891982 and 12913832) genes. On the other hand, KEB individuals [Late Neolithic Moroccans] exhibit some European- derived alleles that predispose individuals to lighter skin and eye colour, including those on genes SLC24A5 (rs1426654) and OCA2 (rs16891982) (Supplementary Note 11).
posted
Don't forget to take a glance at the supplementary info (here).
On p. 55-6, it appears there's a bit of SSA admixture in IAM (the early Neolithic Moroccans):
quote:Here, IAM and KEB are similar to Mozabites, although some red African-like ancestry is observed in IAM and some green European-like in KEB.
However, there's also some Neanderthal ancestry in IAM which we wouldn't expect from a pure "Basal Eurasian" population:
quote:When using the Altai and Mezmaiskaya Neanderthal genomes, it is possible to detect Neanderthal introgression into KEB, but it is impossible to say so in IAM, as the error bars overlaps with 0. However, when we used Altai, with the Vindija Cave genome with a higher coverage than Mezmaiskaya, the introgression signal in IAM and KEB is clear, pointing to an ancestry outside of Africa.
I'm inclined to think there's an Iberomaurusian contribution in the IAM sample that predates the Iberian Neolithic one. We already know populations of Eurasian origin were present in NW Africa during the Upper Paleolithic, so IAM having some remnant ancestry of this would make a lot of sense.
posted
There was no Iberomaurusian contribution in the IAM. During the IAM period, the users of this toolkit had already migrated out of North Africa.
The Neolithic process in North Africa was done by Africans, who took the Agro-Pastoral cultures to the Levant and Europe (4).
Niger-Congo Speakers probably played an important role in the peopling of the Sahara. Drake et al make it clear there was considerable human activity in the Sahara before it became a desert[1]. Drake et al [1] provides evidence that the original settlers of this wet Sahara, who used aquatic tool kits, were Nilo-Saharan (NS) speakers. The authors also recognized another Saharan culture that played a role in the peopling of the desert. This population hunted animals with the bow-and –arrow; they are associated with the Ounanian culture. The Ounanian culture existed 12kya [3].
The IAM people [Early Neolithic Moroccans] (5), were nothing more than hunter-gatherer Kushites that had originally belonged to the Ounanian Culture (3-4). The Ounanians, like their Kushite descendants were great archers and based their civilization on hunting using the bow, and limited cattle domestication (3-4).
The Ounanian culture was first described by Breuil in 1930 at Ounan to the south of Taodeni in northern Mali. Ounanian Points are suggested to be the hallmark of the some Epipaleolithic industries in the central Sahara, the Sahel and northern Sudan, and dated to the early Holocene.
The Ounanian culture is associated with sites in central Egypt, Algeria, Mali, Mauretania and Niger [3-4]. The Ounanian tradition is probably associated with the Niger-Congo phyla. This would explain the close relationship between the Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages[3].
The original homeland of the Niger-Congo speakers was probably situated in the Saharan Highlands during the Ounanian period. From here NC populations migrated into the Fezzan, Nile Valley and Sudan as their original homeland became more and more arid.
In the Eastern Sahara many individual types of tanged and shouldered arrowheads occur on early Holocene prehistoric sites along with Green Saharan/Wavy-line pottery (1-2) . 'Saharo-Sudanese Neolithic' wavy-line, dotted wavy line and walking-comb pottery was used from Lake Turkana to Nabta Playa, in Tibestim , Mauritania, on into in the Hoggar, in Niger. This pottery evolved into the Beaker Bell ceramics.
Wavy-line pottery
The Ounanian culture was not isolated in Africa. It was spread into the Levant. As a result, we have in the archaeological literature the name Ounan-Harif point. This name was proposed for the tanged points at Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba .
Tanged Point
Harifian is a specialized regional cultural development of the Epipalaeolithic of the Negev Desert. Harifian has close connections with the late Mesolithic cultures of Fayyum and the Eastern Deserts of Egypt, whose tool assemblage resembles that of the Harifian.
The tangled Ounanian points are also found at Foum Arguin . These points were used from Oued Draa, in southern Morocco, to the Banc d’Arguin and from the Atlantic shore to the lowlands of northwestern Sahara in Mauritania . We now have DNA from Ounanian sites in Morocco.
All the burials in Ifri n’Amr o’Moussa site IAM1-IAM7 , are devoid of any artifacts, except for an original funeral ritual, which consists of placing a millstone on the skull (5) . These burials were dated from 4,850 to 5,250 BCE, they carried U6, M1, T2, X and K (5). This suggest that Africans were already carrying this mtDNA. The spread of the Ounanians to Harif in the Levant explains the presence of these Kushite clades in the Levant and Anatolia.
In summary, the Niger-Congo speakers or Kushites formerly lived in the highland regions of the Fezzan and Hoggar until after 4000 BC. The ancestors of the Kushites were the Ounanians who spread the Ounan-Harfian toolkit, pottery and arrows from throughout North Africa, into Iberia and the Levant. Originally hunter-gatherers the Proto-Niger- Congo people developed an agro-pastoral economy which included the cultivation of millet, and domestication of cattle (and sheep). It was these Kushites who introduced mtDNA U6, M1, T2, X and K; and Y-Chromosome R1b into Eurasian from their African homeland in the Sahel-Sahara.
References: 1. Nick A. Drake, Roger M. Blench, Simon J. Armitage, Charlie S. Bristow, and Kevin H. White. (2010). Ancient watercourses and biogeography of the Sahara explain the peopling of the desert PNAS 2011 108 (2) 458-462; published ahead of print December 27,2010, doi:10.1073/pnas.1012231108 2. Vernet R, Ott M, Tarrou L, Gallin A, Géoris-Creuseveau J. (2007) Excavation of the mound of FA 10 (Banc d'Arguin) and its contribution to the knowledge of the culture paleolithical Foum Arguin, northwestern Sahara (Translated from French) J Afr Archaeol 5:17–46. 3. Winters C. (2012). Origin of the Niger-Congo Speakers. WebmedCentral GENETICS 2012;3(3). https://www.webmedcentral.com/article_view/3149 4. Winters, C. (2017)A GENETIC CHRONOLOGY OF AFRICAN Y-CHROMOSOMES R-V88 AND R-M269 IN AFRICA AND EURASIA,http://www.cibtech.org/J-LIFE-SCIENCES/PUBLICATIONS/2017/VOL-7-NO-2/04-JLS-004-WINTERS-A-EURASIA.pdf 5. Fregel R, et al (2017). Neolithization of North Africa involved the migration of people from both the Levant and Europe. bioRxiv 191569; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/191569
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