The term Eurasian backflow, or Eurasian back-migrations, has been used to describe several pre-Neolithic and Neolithic migration events of humans from western Eurasia back to Africa. [1]
Contents
- Neanderthal admixture and Eurasian ancestry
- Average Eurasian frequencies in African populations
- See also
- References
Although preceded by many waves of earlier Homo Sapien dispersals into Eurasia, all present-day humans outside Africa descend primarily from a single expansion that occurred between 70,000–50,000 years ago. [3] [4] [5]
Beginning around 30,000-15,000 years ago, a population closely related to Paleolithic individuals from Dzudzuana Cave in Georgia expanded from the Near East back into Northern Africa, spreading in connection with microlithic-backed bladelet technologies that would later become ubiquitous across North Africa. This diffusion contributed up to 55% of the genetic ancestry of the Iberomaurusian culture, and introduced the mitochondrial haplogroups M1 and U6 to the region, which along with the aforementioned genetic ancestry, define the "autochthonous/typical North African" or "Maghrebi" component, as it is referred to in genetic studies. [6]
Approximately 8,000 years ago, populations of the Neolithic Levant expanded into North Africa via the Sinai Peninsula. This diffusion was rooted in wider displacements of people in the wake of the 6200 BC climatic event, and coincided with the introduction of Southwest Asian domesticates such as sheep, goats, and cattle into Africa, leading to the rise of Saharan cattle pastoralism and the appearance of Ashakar Ware pottery in the Maghreb. [7] This expanding population interacted and admixed with local ancestries, as seen in both Skhirat-Rouazi individuals of Morocco and eastern African pastoralist groups of the Pastoral Neolithic. [8] This diffusion may have also provided the demographic and cultural conditions for the early dispersal of Afro-Asiatic languages across North Africa, whose known branches of Cushitic, Chadic, Egyptian, and Berber correspond strikingly with the geography of these Neolithic expansions. [7]
Outside of North Africa, about 3,000 years ago, [9] [10] or already earlier between 6,000-5,000 years ago, [11] farmers from Anatolia and the Near East migrated into other regions. Signs of this migration can be found in the genomes of contemporary peoples from all over East Africa. Moreover, analysis has also recognized that some of the Eurasian ancestry in Northeast Africa could possibly pre-date agriculture, from around ~12-23 ka. [12] Significant Eurasian ancestry is found among populations of Eastern Africa, and among specific ethnic groups of the Horn of Africa, Northern Sudan, the Sahel region, as well as among the Malagasy people of Madagascar. West Eurasian ancestry thus arrived in Africa first during the Palaeolithic, then followed by several later Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Bronze Age migration events. [9] Although Medieval events, such as the Arab expansions, also brought gene flow into various African populations, [13] these left a lower mark on North African genetic structure, relative to Neolithization. [14] [15]
The Neolithic populations migrating back-to-Africa were said to be similar to the Neolithic farmers who had brought agriculture from Anatolia to Europe about 7,000 years ago, and whose demographic legacy is most closely preserved in present-day Sardinians, their contemporary descendants. [1] Although, other studies have revealed some genetic distinctions between the populations that brought farming into Europe and the Maghreb, and the Levantine related groups that spread southward into East Africa. [17] [7] A study from 2020 inferred two sources for the spread of Eurasian admixture in Northeastern Africa, with one being associated with pastoralism, involving groups originating from the Levant and North Africa. [18] Further research has shown that the back-migration into the region was a complex process, identifying multiple origins for the Eurasian component in Northeast African groups today. [19] [20]
A report in November 2015 on a 4,500-year-old Ethiopian genome [21] [22] had originally overestimated the genetic influence of the Eurasian backflow, claiming that signs of the migration could be found in genomes all over Africa. This mistaken claim was based on a data-processing error and was corrected in February 2016. The West Asian admixture was only predominant in the populations of the Horn of Africa, in particular Ethiopian highlanders, and less relevant or absent in the genetic makeup of West and Central Africans. [23] In addition to intrinsic diversity within the continent borne by population structure and isolation, influxes of Eurasian populations into Africa has been seen as a critical contributor to the existing genetic diversity. [24]
