First large-scale study of ancient DNA in sub-Saharan Africa lifts veil on recent prehistory.
An international research team headed by Harvard Medical School did a large-scale study of ancient DNA in sub-Saharan Africa. The study looked at the movement of populations and how they replaced each other around 8,000 years ago. The study looked at the details about sub-Saharan African ancestry including genetic adaptations from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and population distribution before farmers and herders moved about the continent over 3,000 years ago“Ancestry during this time period is such an unexplored landscape that everything we learned was new” said David Reich, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School School. With new types of technology, DNA that has been subject to rapid degrading in warm climates is now able to be extracted from things like ear bones which are smaller bones are more dense than other bones and are able to hold genetic material better.
Teams from 11 countries in Europe, The U.S. and Africa compared 15 ancient sub-Saharan Africans to modern African and Non-African populations. The results showed that when agriculture was spreading across Europe and Asia, farmers spread into hunter gatherer groups. In the horn of Africa genetic migration went from the east coast to the west coast. In other areas, groups completely disappeared on the genetic record. Tracing these migration patterns, researchers at MIT were able to track mutations in two different regions on the genome of Southern Africans that underwent natural selection. First was an adaptation to UV light and the other was an adaptation in the taste buds leading to help detect poison in plants.
I find studies like these interesting because we are products of our environment. Being able to track our genetic drift and migration patterns can tell us about where we came from genetically. It makes the world a small place and show us that genetic variation is always on the go. Our adaptations also tell us a lot about history we wouldn't have known otherwise.
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I find studies like these interesting because we are products of our environment. Being able to track our genetic drift and migration patterns can tell us about where we came from genetically. It makes the world a small place and show us that genetic variation is always on the go. Our adaptations also tell us a lot about history we wouldn't have known otherwise.
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