The Widespread Appearance of Neanderthal DNA: Africans Have It Too
It has long been argued that Neanderthal derived DNA is found in all non-Africans. As a result, it has been assumed that Africans fail to carry Neanderthal ancestry, even though Neanderthal skeletons have been found in North Africa at Jebel Ighoud and Haua Fteah.
The idea that Africans fail to carry Neanderthal DNA has recently been proven as wrong.
Marc Haber, a British geneticist from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, has found that the Touboo in Chad and the Amhara in Ethiopia carry Neanderthal genes.
Whereas Eurasians carry ~two percent Neanderthal ancestry, Ethiopians carry ~one percent Neanderthal ancestry, and Central Africans carried ~0.5 percent Neanderthal ancestry.
Haber maintains that Africans who carry Neanderthal DNA show gene flow from Eurasians. The detectable Neanderthal DNA in Africans is found among Africans that carry the R1b haplogroup.
Haber believes that the R1b haplogroup penetrated Central Africa via two migrations. The first migration he believes took place 6000 years ago (6kya), and the second migration around 3kya. The major problem with this theory is that there is no archaeological evidence of a back migration from Eurasia to Africa.
The discovery of Eurasian “admixture” among Africans is not a recent discovery. Pickrell et al estimated Eurasian ancestry among Africans from East and South Africa ranged from 2.2-50 percent and that the Mande people carry two percent Eurasian admixture.
This supports the original claim of the authors of the Mota article – i.e. the claim that as much as six to seven percent of the ancestry of West and Central African groups was “Eurasian” was not an error.
There are numerous populations in East, South, and West Africa that carry Eurasian admixture. The highest frequency of R1 is found in Western Eurasia. Cruciani et al claim that the pristine form of R1*M173 was found in Africa.
The frequency of Y-chromosome R1*-M173 in Africa ranges between 7-95 percent and Coia et al said that R1-M173 averages 39.5 percent in Africa. R haplogroups are characterized by R1-M207/M173 genetic background. The Eurasian R haplogroups in Africa include: R1-M269, R-V88, R-L754 (R1b1a) and RL278 (R1b1).
Y-chromosome V88 (R1b1a) has its highest frequency among Chadic speakers, while the carriers of V88 among Niger-Congo speakers (predominately Bantu people) range between two to 66 percent (Cruciani et al, 2010; Bernielle-Lee et al, 2009).
Haplogroup V88 includes the mutations M18, V35, and V7. Cruciani et al (2010) revealed that R-V88 is also carried by Eurasians – including the distinctive mutations M18, V35, and V7.
Haplogroup R1b1* is found in Africa at various frequencies. Berniell-Lee et al (2009) found in their study that 5.2 percent carried Rb1* (RL278). The frequency of R1b1* among the Bantu ranged from two to 20 percent.
The bearers of R1b1* among the Pygmy populations ranged from one to 25 percent (Berniell-Lee et al, 2009). The frequency of RL278 among Guinea-Bissau populations was 12 percent. The Toubou, Laal, and Sara have frequencies between 20-34 percent of RL754 (R1b1a).
Neanderthal Tools
Neanderthals used Mousterian tools. These tools were also being used in Africa as early as 130kya. This places Neanderthals in North Africa.
The Neanderthal tools found at Jebel Ighoud and Haua Fteah resemble contemporaneous European Neanderthal tools. The presence of Mousterian tools suggest that Neanderthals mixed with Africans because we know that anatomically modern humans were living in the area at the time.
The North African Neanderthal people used the common Levoiso-Mousterian tool kit originally discovered in Europe. Ki-Zerbo said the Neanderthal skeletons came from Djebel Irhoud and El Guettar in Morocco. Later Neanderthal people used the Aterian tool kit. It was probably in Morocco that Neanderthal and Khoisan interacted.
Carleton S. Coon, in The Living Races of Man (1965), Anthropology A to Z (1963), and The Races of Europe (1939), claimed that the Khoisan had formerly lived in North Africa from the Atlas Mountains down into the Fezzan and Sahel.
Coon also said that the “The Duwwud also look like Hottentots. Other partly Bushman and partly Negroid people are also to be found in the Sahara.” Coon maintains that the Haritan also include ancient South African Khoisan (SAK) population elements.
Up until M. Gallego Llorente’s Mota man article and the Haber article, researchers claimed that Africans had no relationship to the Neanderthals. But Prufer et al found that the Khoisan share more alleles with Altaic Neanderthal than Denisova.
Haber has noted that derived DNA in all non-Africans is more closely related to Neanderthals from the Caucasus: Alraic Neanderthal(s).
In the Supplemental section of Prufer et al’s work, there is considerable discussion of the relationship between Neanderthal and Khoisan. In relation to the Altaic Neanderthal, non-Africans have a lower divergence rate than Africans – between 10-20 percent. Prufer et al (2013) note little statistical difference between non-African and African divergence.
An interesting finding made by Prufer et al (2013) was that Altaic Neanderthal and Denisova are estimated to have similar split times.
However, the divergence estimates for African Khoisan-Mandekan and Altaic is younger than the split between Africans and Denisova archaic individuals and modern African individuals. The split times between the Khoisan and Mandekan may be explained by the presence of AF-24 haplotype in West Africa.
Prufer et al (2013) detected a relationship between Neanderthals and the Mandekan. This is not surprising now that we know the Mandekan have two percent Eurasian ancestry, according to Pickerell et al.
In summary, diverse African populations carry Eurasian ancestry. As a result, researchers will probably find more Africans that carry Neanderthal ancestry in the future.
See more here ancient-origins.net
Editor’s note: PSI does not endorse the views of the author of this article, as archaeological evidence shows the Neanderthals died out around 24,000 years ago. We publish it to encourage rational discussion.
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Tom
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Don’t let big pharma “crispertize” it.
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Koen Vogel
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It shouldn’t surprise anyone that North African DNA has followed a complex evolution path over multi-millenial time periods. Multiple factors such as climate and habitat change, the Toba super volcano, a weak geomagnetic field over Africa (https://principia-scientific.com/why-did-the-laurentide-ice-sheet-melt-during-the-younger-dryas/) , etc. may at times have caused Northern Africa to swing between a human paradise and a desolate waste land. The data would seem to indicate Northern Africa was at times repopulated with a mix of migrants from the North (Europe, Asia) and from the South (Central and Southern Africa). Assuming the area was continuously inhabited by a large, genetically homogenous population may be one you want to set aside for now. Unravelling our complex pre-historic migrations using DNA will be challenging.
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