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Optimized Bone Sampling Protocols for the Retrieval of Ancient DNA from Archaeological Remains
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Reconstructing Prehistoric African Population Structure.

Pontus Skoglund1, Jessica C Thompson2, Mary E Prendergast3

  • 1Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.

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|September 23, 2017
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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Ancient African genomes reveal the wider past distribution of San ancestry and complex population dynamics, including farmer expansions and herder migrations across the continent. We also identified natural selection events in southern Africa.

Keywords:
Africaadaptationancient DNAhunter-gatherersnatural selectionpopulation geneticspopulation history

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Area of Science:

  • Paleogenomics
  • Population Genetics
  • African Prehistory

Background:

  • Understanding the deep history of human populations in Africa is crucial for reconstructing global human migration and adaptation.
  • Previous studies have suggested complex admixture events, but ancient genomic data from diverse African regions remains limited.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To reconstruct the demographic history of prehistoric Africans using genome-wide data.
  • To investigate the ancestral contributions of ancient lineages to past and present African populations.
  • To document the spread of agricultural and pastoralist groups and identify instances of natural selection.

Main Methods:

  • Assembly and analysis of genome-wide data from 16 individuals from prehistoric Africa.
  • Ancient DNA (aDNA) sequencing and bioinformatics analyses.
  • Population genetic modeling to infer ancestry and migration patterns.

Main Results:

  • The anciently divergent lineage of the San people had a broader past distribution than previously known, contributing significantly to hunter-gatherers in Malawi and Tanzania.
  • The expansion of West African farmers led to the replacement of local hunter-gatherer populations in certain areas.
  • A Tanzanian pastoralist from ~3,100 years ago contributed ancestry across eastern and southern Africa, including to a ~1,200-year-old southern African pastoralist, indicating widespread herder movements.

Conclusions:

  • The deep diversification of African lineages was complex, involving extensive gene flow and potentially more deeply diverged lineages than the San contributing to Western African populations.
  • Ancient genomes provide direct evidence for population replacement and long-distance migrations associated with the spread of farming and herding.
  • Analysis of ancient genomes from southern Africa revealed specific episodes of natural selection in these populations.