Rare Ancient DNA Found in the Sahara Desert Unwinds the Verdant Past-OxBig News Network

The silence of the Sahara desert unveils the evidence of a verdant past rooted in North African lineage, published on 2 April in the Journal Nature. The study took place in the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, together with an archaeological mission in the Sahara at Sapienza University of Rome, revealed that the two mummified individuals discovered from the Takarkori rock shelter in southwest Libya dated back over 7000 years. The findings predict the genetic history of early North African populations during the African Humid Period.

Genome Analysis

The Sahara desert was once a green savannah between 14,500 and 5000 years from the present, along the water bodies that promoted human occupation with pastoralism in the Holocene epoch. The Sahara Desert has rare DNA preservation due to its present habitat, leading to limited knowledge of genetic history. However, the Sahara was not a barren land that we know today; in fact, a green and fertile land dotted with grasslands and lakes. The study suggests that the DNA retrieval unveils a previously unknown North African ancestral lineage.

Evidence from the analysis predicts that these ancient people were different from both sub-Saharan and Eurasian groups, signalling a unique North African crowd that played a crucial role in the prehistoric period. However, the DNA contains no direct evidence of blending with neighbouring areas of that time. This, in turn, highlights the genetic isolation and importance in the history of human evolution.

The Takarkori individuals are closely related to the ancestors from Taforalt Cave, Morocco, linked with the Iberomaurusian lithic industry and predating the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process). However, Takarkri individuals show ten times less Neanderthal hierarchy than Valentine farmers, still significantly more than present sub-Saharan genomes. Taforalt individuals have half the Neanderthal blend of non-Africans.

Findings and Implications

The study demonstrates not just reshaping the understanding of ancient North African hierarchy but also puts strong emphasis on the importance of the Green Sahara in the past. Not just that, pastoralism flourished through cultural diffusion into a divergent, isolated North African ancestral lineage that spread in North Africa at the time of the late Pleistocene epoch. Researchers continue to explore the region, and there could be more secrets unleashed from this vast green landscape, bridging the gaps in the human origins story.