scholarly journals Ancient DNA reveals a multistep spread of the first herders into sub-Saharan Africa

Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 365 (6448) ◽  
pp. eaaw6275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary E. Prendergast ◽  
Mark Lipson ◽  
Elizabeth A. Sawchuk ◽  
Iñigo Olalde ◽  
Christine A. Ogola ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Multiphase Model ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Pastoral Neolithic

How food production first entered eastern Africa ~5000 years ago and the extent to which people moved with livestock is unclear. We present genome-wide data from 41 individuals associated with Later Stone Age, Pastoral Neolithic (PN), and Iron Age contexts in what are now Kenya and Tanzania to examine the genetic impacts of the spreads of herding and farming. Our results support a multiphase model in which admixture between northeastern African–related peoples and eastern African foragers formed multiple pastoralist groups, including a genetically homogeneous PN cluster. Additional admixture with northeastern and western African–related groups occurred by the Iron Age. These findings support several movements of food producers while rejecting models of minimal admixture with foragers and of genetic differentiation between makers of distinct PN artifacts.

scholarly journals Ancient genomes reveal complex patterns of population movement, interaction, and replacement in sub-Saharan Africa

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (24) ◽  
pp. eaaz0183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ke Wang ◽  
Steven Goldstein ◽  
Madeleine Bleasdale ◽  
Bernard Clist ◽  
Koen Bostoen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southern Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
The Past ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Movement Interaction ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Population Interactions ◽  
Eastern And Southern Africa ◽  
Complex Trajectories

Africa hosts the greatest human genetic diversity globally, but legacies of ancient population interactions and dispersals across the continent remain understudied. Here, we report genome-wide data from 20 ancient sub-Saharan African individuals, including the first reported ancient DNA from the DRC, Uganda, and Botswana. These data demonstrate the contraction of diverse, once contiguous hunter-gatherer populations, and suggest the resistance to interaction with incoming pastoralists of delayed-return foragers in aquatic environments. We refine models for the spread of food producers into eastern and southern Africa, demonstrating more complex trajectories of admixture than previously suggested. In Botswana, we show that Bantu ancestry post-dates admixture between pastoralists and foragers, suggesting an earlier spread of pastoralism than farming to southern Africa. Our findings demonstrate how processes of migration and admixture have markedly reshaped the genetic map of sub-Saharan Africa in the past few millennia and highlight the utility of combined archaeological and archaeogenetic approaches.

scholarly journals Inferring adaptive gene-flow in recent African history

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Busby ◽  
Ryan Christ ◽  
Gavin Band ◽  
Ellen Leffler ◽  
Quang Si Le ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Flow ◽  
African Ancestry ◽  
The Gambia ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Histocompatibility Complex ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
Multiple Regions ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Sub Saharan

AbstractGene-flow from an ancestrally differentiated group has been shown to be a powerful source of selectively advantageous variants. To understand whether recent gene-flow may have contributed to adaptation among humans in sub-Saharan Africa, we applied a novel method to identify deviations in ancestry inferred from genome-wide data in 48 populations. Among the signals of ancestry deviation that we find in the Fula, an historically pastoralist ethnic group from the Gambia, are the region that encodes the lactose persistence phenotype, LCT/MCM6, which has the highest proportion of Eurasian ancestry in the genome. The region with the lowest proportion of non-African ancestry is across DARC, which encodes the Duffy null phenotype and is protective for Plasmodium vivax malaria. In the Jola from the Gambia and a Khoesan speaking group from Namibia we find multiple regions with inferred ancestry deviation including the Major Histocompatibility Complex. Our analysis shows the potential for adaptive gene-flow in recent human history.

Radiocarbon Dates for Sub-Saharan Africa—IV

1966 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 495-506 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian M. Fagan
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Age Range ◽  
First Time

The fourth radiocarbon list contains many new and important dates. Only isolated readings are still available from West Africa, but some later Iron Age sites have recently been dated. The first samples for the Kenya Highlands date food production in that region to the first millennium b.c., while important dates from Uganda confirm the traditional datings of Bigo and Bweyerore. Samples from Kilwa on the Tanzanian coast are somewhat at variance with other dating evidence.Dates for the Angola Iron Age range between a.d. 760 and the fifteenth century, while the Leopard's Kopje industry of Rhodesia has been dated for the first time.The list is completed with many isolated dates from all parts of the subcontinent.

scholarly journals Mozambican genetic variation provides new insights into the Bantu expansion

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armando Semo ◽  
Magdalena Gayà-Vidal ◽  
Cesar Fortes-Lima ◽  
Bérénice Alard ◽  
Sandra Oliveira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Genetic Relationships ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Nucleotide Polymorphisms ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Genetic Substructure

AbstractThe Bantu expansion, which started in West Central Africa around 5,000 BP, constitutes a major migratory movement involving the joint spread of peoples and languages across sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the rich linguistic and archaeological evidence available, the genetic relationships between different Bantu-speaking populations and the migratory routes they followed during various phases of the expansion remain poorly understood. Here, we analyze the genetic profiles of southwestern and southeastern Bantu-speaking peoples located at the edges of the Bantu expansion by generating genome-wide data for 200 individuals from 12 Mozambican and 3 Angolan populations using ∼1.9 million autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms. Incorporating a wide range of available genetic data, our analyses confirm previous results favoring a “late split” between West and East Bantu speakers, following a joint passage through the rainforest. In addition, we find that Bantu speakers from eastern Africa display genetic substructure, with Mozambican populations forming a gradient of relatedness along a North-South cline stretching from the coastal border between Kenya and Tanzania to South Africa. This gradient is further associated with a southward increase in genetic homogeneity, and involved minimum admixture with resident populations. Together, our results provide the first genetic evidence in support of a rapid North-South dispersal of Bantu peoples along the Indian Ocean Coast, as inferred from the distribution and antiquity of Early Iron Age assemblages associated with the Kwale archaeological tradition.

scholarly journals Social stratification without genetic differentiation at the site of Kulubnarti in Christian Period Nubia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kendra A. Sirak ◽  
Daniel M. Fernandes ◽  
Mark Lipson ◽  
Swapan Mallick ◽  
Matthew Mah ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
Social Divisions ◽  
Genetic Landscape ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Iron Age Levant ◽  
The Impact

Nubia has been a corridor for the movement of goods, culture, and people between sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt, and West Eurasia since prehistory, but little is known about the genetic landscape of the region prior to the influence of the Islamic migrations that began in the late 1st millennium CE. We report genome-wide data for 66 individuals from the site of Kulubnarti (∼650–1000 CE), increasing the number of ancient individuals with genome-level data from the Nile Valley from three to 69. Our results shed light on the genetic ancestry of a Christian Period group and help to address a long-standing question about the relationships among people buried in two neighboring cemeteries who show skeletal evidence of differences in morbidity and mortality that are broadly suggestive of differences in social status. We find that the Kulubnarti Nubians were admixed with ∼43% Nilotic-related ancestry on average (individual proportions varied between ∼36-54%) and the remaining ancestry reflecting a West Eurasian-related gene pool likely introduced into Nubia through Egypt, but ultimately deriving from an ancestry pool like that found in the Bronze and Iron Age Levant. The admixed ancestry at Kulubnarti reflects interactions between genetically-distinct people in northeast Africa spanning almost a millennium, with West Eurasian ancestry disproportionately associated with females, highlighting the impact of female mobility in this region. We find no significant differences in ancestry among individuals from the two plausibly socially-stratified cemeteries at Kulubnarti, supporting hypotheses that the groups may have been socially divided but were not genetically distinct. We identify seven pairs of inter-cemetery relatives as close as second-degree, suggesting that any social divisions at Kulubnarti did not prevent mixing between groups. Present-day Nubians are not directly descended from the Christian Period people from Kulubnarti without additional admixture, attesting to the dynamic history of interaction that continues to shape the cultural and genetic landscape of Nubia.

Radiocarbon Dates for Sub-Saharan Africa: V

1967 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 513-527 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian M. Fagan
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Salt Pans ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Sub Saharan

This list contains many scattered dates, most of them from sites either provisionally dated from other sources, or recently excavated. An important series of dates from the Sahara confirm earlier readings for food production in that area. The Daima sequence from Nigeria is dated from the middle of the first millennium A.D. to the closing centuries of the Iron Age.In East and Southern Africa, two important early Iron Age dates from Kenya have been released. Four dates for Ivuna salt-pans place the site as slightly later than the closing stages of the Kalambo Falls sequence. Two more problematical dates for Engaruka have been announced, as well as a date of A.D. 410 for the Iron Age in Swaziland.All dates given in this and subsequent lists are radiocarbon ages, rather than readings in calendar years.

scholarly journals Ancient genomic time transect from the Central Asian Steppe unravels the history of the Scythians

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (13) ◽  
pp. eabe4414
Author(s):  
Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone ◽  
Elmira Khussainova ◽  
Nurzhibek Kahbatkyzy ◽  
Lyazzat Musralina ◽  
Maria A. Spyrou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Gene Pools ◽  
Social Rules ◽  
Eurasian Steppe ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Millennium

The Scythians were a multitude of horse-warrior nomad cultures dwelling in the Eurasian steppe during the first millennium BCE. Because of the lack of first-hand written records, little is known about the origins and relations among the different cultures. To address these questions, we produced genome-wide data for 111 ancient individuals retrieved from 39 archaeological sites from the first millennia BCE and CE across the Central Asian Steppe. We uncovered major admixture events in the Late Bronze Age forming the genetic substratum for two main Iron Age gene-pools emerging around the Altai and the Urals respectively. Their demise was mirrored by new genetic turnovers, linked to the spread of the eastern nomad empires in the first centuries CE. Compared to the high genetic heterogeneity of the past, the homogenization of the present-day Kazakhs gene pool is notable, likely a result of 400 years of strict exogamous social rules.

scholarly journals Africa and the wider world: creole communities in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans

Tempo ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-481
Author(s):  
Malyn Newitt
Keyword(s):  
Technology Transfer ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Cultural Appropriation ◽  
The World ◽  
African Slaves ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
Sub Saharan

Abstract: Portuguese creoles were instrumental in bringing sub-Saharan Africa into the intercontinental systems of the Atlantic and Indian Ocean. In the Atlantic Islands a distinctive creole culture emerged, made up of Christian emigrants from Portugal, Jewish exiles and African slaves. These creole polities offered a base for coastal traders and became politically influential in Africa - in Angola creating their own mainland state. Connecting the African interior with the world economy was largely on African terms and the lack of technology transfer meant that the economic gap between Africa and the rest of the world inexorably widened. African slaves in Latin America adapted to a society already creolised, often through adroit forms of cultural appropriation and synthesis. In eastern Africa Portuguese worked within existing creolised Islamic networks but the passage of their Indiamen through the Atlantic created close links between the Indian Ocean and Atlantic commercial systems.

scholarly journals Resource frontiers and agglomeration economies: The varied logics of transnational land-based investing in Southern and Eastern Africa

AMBIO ◽  
2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dilini Abeygunawardane ◽  
Angela Kronenburg García ◽  
Zhanli Sun ◽  
Daniel Müller ◽  
Almeida Sitoe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Data ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Agglomeration Economies ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Forestry Investments ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Investment Location

AbstractActor-level data on large-scale commercial agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa are scarce. The peculiar choice of transnational investing in African land has, therefore, been subject to conjecture. Addressing this gap, we reconstructed the underlying logics of investment location choices in a Bayesian network, using firm- and actor-level interview and spatial data from 37 transnational agriculture and forestry investments across 121 sites in Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. We distinguish four investment locations across gradients of resource frontiers and agglomeration economies to derive the preferred locations of different investors with varied skillsets and market reach (i.e., track record). In contrast to newcomers, investors with extensive track records are more likely to expand the land use frontier, but they are also likely to survive the high transaction costs of the pre-commercial frontier. We highlight key comparative advantages of Southern and Eastern African frontiers and map the most probable categories of investment locations.

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