Using two people who lived about 10,000 years ago, researchers have reconstructed South Africa’s oldest human genomes to date, shedding light on the region’s demographic history.
The genetic sequences come from a man and a woman whose remains were discovered at the Oakhurst rock shelter near the southern coastal town of George, said study author Victoria Gibbon, a professor of biological anthropology at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Sunday 22 September. They are part of 13 sequences reconstructed from people whose remains were found at the shelter and who lived between 1,300 and 10,000 years ago. Before these discoveries, the oldest genomes reconstructed in the region dated back around 2,000 years.
The Oakhurst study surprisingly reveals that the oldest genomes were genetically similar to those of the San and Khoikhoi groups, who live in the same region today, UCT said in a statement. “Similar studies in Europe have revealed a history of large-scale genetic changes due to human movements over the past 10,000 years.”explained the study’s lead author, Joscha Gretzinger of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany: “These new results from southern Africa are very different and suggest a long history of relative genetic stability.”
Current DNA data shows that this only changed about 1,200 years ago, when newcomers introduced herding, farming and new languages to the region, and began interacting with local hunter-gatherer groups.
Although some of the oldest traces of modern humans can be found in southern Africa, they are generally poorly preserved, Ms.me Gibbon told Agence France-Presse (AFP). But new technologies now make it possible to obtain this DNA, he added.
Unlike in Europe and Asia, where the genomes of thousands of people have been reconstructed, in southern Africa, specifically in Botswana, South Africa and Zambia, fewer than two dozen ancient genomes have been found. “Sites like this are rare in South Africa, and Oakhurst has provided insight into the movements and relationships of local people across the landscape for almost 9,000 years.”M insistsme Gibbon.
