Africa is the birthplace of modern humans and the continent with the highest genetic diversity. However, new research continues to reveal the secrets of this place.
Researchers from the Portugal-Angola TwinLab traveled to Angola’s Namib Desert, a remote, multi-ethnic region where different traditions meet, in the hope of finding clues in modern populations. The study was published in the journal Science Advances, Phys.org writes.
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“We managed to find groups that were thought to have disappeared more than 50 years ago,” says Jorge Rocha, a geneticist at the Center for Research on Biodiversity and Genetic Resources (CIBIO, University of Porto) who led the field work. Angolan anthropologists Samuel and Teresa Aso from the Center for Desert Research (CEDO).
Among the communities the team met with was a group of Quepe herders who previously spoke the Quadi language.
“Kwadi is a language that shares common ancestry with the Khoe languages spoken by foragers and herders in Southern Africa,” explains CIBIO linguist Anna-Maria Fehn, who participated in the fieldwork and was able to conduct bilingual interviews. Native English quatrains may be the last in the world.
“Khoe-Kwadi languages are associated with the prehistoric migration of East African pastoralists,” adds Rocha, whose research focuses on the population history of Southern Africa.
The team’s new research shows that the inhabitants of Angola’s Namib Desert were quite different from other modern populations, but were also very well grouped among themselves.
“According to our previous studies of maternally inherited DNA, the majority of genome diversity segregates by socioeconomic status. We have worked hard to understand how much of this local diversity and global weirdness is due to genetic drift. This is a random process that disproportionately affects Bern in Switzerland.” “mixtures from small populations and extinct populations,” says researcher Sandra Oliveira from the University of California.
In addition to the strong influence of genetic drift causing differences between neighboring groups of different socioeconomic status, the team showed that descendants of Quadi speakers and members of socially disadvantaged populations in the Namib Desert have a unique pre-Bantu ancestry. only in populations at this location.
Previous research has shown that foragers in the Kalahari Desert are descended from ancestors who were the first to diverge from all surviving humans. The results consistently place the newly identified breed within the same ancestral lineage, but show that the Namibian breed diverged from all other South African lineages, followed by a split between the northern and southern ancestors of the Kalahari.
With this new information, researchers were able to reconstruct small-scale contact histories resulting from the migration of Khoi-Kwadi-speaking pastoralists and Bantu-speaking farmers to Southern Africa.
Additionally, the results suggest that modern DNA research targeting understudied regions with high ethno-linguistic diversity can complement ancient DNA research in understanding the deep genetic structure of the African continent.
Previously Focus He wrote about the largest family tree in history, revealing humanity’s ancestral home.
We also talked about the time capsule of Theopetra Cave, how the world’s oldest structure created by human hands was preserved.
Source: Focus
Ashley Fitzgerald is an accomplished journalist in the field of technology. She currently works as a writer at 24 news breaker. With a deep understanding of the latest technology developments, Ashley’s writing provides readers with insightful analysis and unique perspectives on the industry.