4000-year-old hair from the Middle Nile

[drobbah]

4000-year-old hair from the Middle Nile highlights unusual ancient DNA degradation pattern and a potential source of early eastern Africa pastoralists

Abstract
Petrous bones and teeth are the skeletal elements most often targeted by researchers for ancient DNA (aDNA) extraction, and the sources of the majority of previously published ancient African genomes. However, the high temperature environments that characterise much of Africa often lead to poor preservation of skeletal remains. Here, we successfully reconstruct and analyse genome-wide data from the naturally mummified hair of a 4000-year-old individual from Sudan in northeastern Africa, after failed attempts at DNA extraction from teeth, petrous, and cranium of this and other individuals from the Kadruka cemeteries. We find that hair DNA extracted with an established single-stranded library protocol is unusually enriched in ultra-short DNA molecules and exhibits substantial interior molecular damage. The aDNA was nonetheless amenable to genetic analyses, which revealed that the genome is genetically indistinguishable from that of early Neolithic eastern African pastoralists located 2500 kms away. Our findings are consistent with established models for the southward dispersal of Middle Nile Valley pastoral populations to the Rift Valley of eastern Africa, and provide a possible genetic source population for this dispersal. Our study highlights the value of mummified hair as an alternate source of aDNA from regions with poor bone preservation.

Full Paper is out:https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-25384-y

[drobbah]

Kadruka_4000ybp plots near the Kenyan Early Pastoralists who are close to the 4000 ybp age.I wonder if Kadruka also has heavy Mota ancestry like those Early Pastoralists or is it’s non-MENA ancestry primarily South Sudanese-like

[pgbk87]

Kadruka_4000ybp plots near the Kenyan Early Pastoralists who are close to the 4000 ybp age.I wonder if they also have heavy Mota ancestry like those Early Pastoralists or is their non-MENA ancestry primarily South Sudanese-like

 

It's hard to really tell but that slight pull away from MOTA leads me to believe that this sample was more similar to the Kulubnarti Christian Era Nubian samples.

[drobbah]

It's hard to really tell but that slight pull away from MOTA leads me to believe that this sample was more similar to the Kulubnarti Christian Era Nubian samples.

Mota-like ancestry that we see in the Early Pastoralists might have been brought with them into the Horn and beyond.This might also explain the Omotic-like signal (6.8% according to Shriner's paper) in Natufians.Perhaps Mota-like groups had a far wider range in NE Africa

"This in turn would point to a high degree of mobility of pastoralists between the Middle Nile Valley and present-day Kenya, potentially before or around the Pastoral Neolithic. It would imply that the southward dispersal of pastoralists from the Middle Nile Valley did not involve genetic exchange with pre-existing human groups along the migration route, particularly local foragers, and may therefore have been relatively rapid."

Indeed, archaeological research suggests that dispersals were likely driven in part by increasing population pressure and regional aridification, with a marked period of aridity in Upper Nubia preceding the first appearance of pastoral groups in the Turkana Basin of eastern Africa at 5000 BP29,30,31. These early eastern African pastoralists at sites like Lothagam in the Turkana Basin29,32, while featuring regional forms of cultural expression, also broadly maintained traditions of monumental mortuary expression, as well as traditions of burial with elaborate grave goods for which the Neolithic and Kerma period cemeteries of the Middle Nile Valley, including Kadruka 1, are recognised9.

[Lank]

Too bad they were not successful with the early Neolithic Kadruka samples, which might be related to (pre?) proto-Cushitic. But this is still great to see. A Kerma period sample closely related to early East African Pastoral Neolithic samples!

[drobbah]

Using the Early_Pastoralists to model the later pastoralists and modern Horner groups:

Ancients:

Target: Tanzania_PN
Distance: 2.6979% / 0.02697874
80.2	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N
17.0	South_Sudanese
2.8	Levant_Natufian_EpiP


Target: Kenya_Pastoral_N_Elmenteitan
Distance: 2.0820% / 0.02082031
85.2	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N
14.8	South_Sudanese

Target: Kenya_Pastoral_N
Distance: 2.0997% / 0.02099670
81.8	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N
18.2	South_Sudanese

Target: Kenya_Pastoral_N_o
Distance: 5.3414% / 0.05341403
61.4	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N
21.8	South_Sudanese
16.8	Levant_Natufian_EpiP

Target: Kenya_Pastoral_IA
Distance: 1.9151% / 0.01915125
51.8	South_Sudanese
48.2	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N

Target: Somalia
Distance: 2.5145% / 0.02514528
69.0	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N
24.2	South_Sudanese
4.0	Levant_Natufian_EpiP
2.8	Yemeni_Mahra

Target: Drobbah_FTDNA_scaled
Distance: 2.6429% / 0.02642863
72.0	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N
23.8	South_Sudanese
3.4	Levant_Natufian_EpiP
0.8	Yemeni_Mahra

Target: Amhara
Distance: 1.6312% / 0.01631189
59.2	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N
19.4	Yemeni_Mahra
17.0	South_Sudanese
4.4	Levant_Natufian_EpiP

Target: Afar_Ethiopia
Distance: 2.1543% / 0.02154299
56.2	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N
20.4	Yemeni_Mahra
18.2	South_Sudanese
5.2	Levant_Natufian_EpiP

Target: Wolayta
Distance: 1.5614% / 0.01561427
56.6	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N
18.4	South_Sudanese
14.6	Mota_4500BP
7.4	Yemeni_Mahra
3.0	Levant_Natufian_EpiP

Target: Ari_Cultivator
Distance: 1.2004% / 0.01200438
48.0	Mota_4500BP
40.6	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N
11.4	South_Sudanese

Target: Beja_Beni-Amer
Distance: 1.7652% / 0.01765231
45.2	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N
34.2	Yemeni_Mahra
16.2	South_Sudanese
4.4	Levant_Natufian_EpiP

Target: Cushitic_Iraqw_Tanzania
Distance: 0.9974% / 0.00997428
54.8	KEN_Early_Pastoral_N
24.2	South_Sudanese
16.4	Mota_4500BP
4.6	Levant_Natufian_EpiP

[Bulletproofpride]

Where do the proto Somali people fit into this new study?

[NetNomad]

Interesting how years ago it was suspected Cushites came from North Sudan due to simple analyses on E-M78 and now this study pretty much seals this hypothesis. The name Cushitic funnily enough was geographically correct despite the chronological misplacement.

[venustas]

Interesting how years ago it was suspected Cushites came from North Sudan due to simple analyses on E-M78 and now this study pretty much seals this hypothesis. The name Cushitic funnily enough was geographically correct despite the chronological misplacement.

What I sometimes say the legends are often truer than many give them credit for. In any case no y-dna was recovered so we still don't know what line they had. E1b1b probably entered Sudan during the neolithic and Sudan probably had A in the paleolithic.

[NetNomad]

What I sometimes say the legends are often truer than many give them credit for. In any case no y-dna was recovered so we still don't know what line they had. E1b1b probably entered Sudan during the neolithic and Sudan probably had A in the paleolithic.

Maybe deep into Sudan (South Sudan) had no E-M35 before the Neolithic, but we can't safely say that for North Sudan. It's too close to Egypt for that.