Mechta-Afalou, also known as Mechtoid or Paleo-Berber, are a population that inhabited parts of North Africa during the late Paleolithic and Mesolithic. [1] They are associated with the Iberomaurusian archaeological culture.
Mechta-Afalou, also known as Mechtoid or Paleo-Berber, are a population that inhabited parts of North Africa during the late Paleolithic and Mesolithic. [1] They are associated with the Iberomaurusian archaeological culture.
Mechtoids are believed to have been assimilated during the Neolithic and early Bronze Age by the makers of the ensuing Capsian culture. [2] In 1999, the anthropologists Colin Groves & Alan Thorne in studying three Northern African samples from the Pleistocene/Holocene, found Taforalt was morphologically "Caucasoid" and resembled late Pleistocene Europeans, while Afalou was more intermediate in traits. In contrast to both, the Sudanese remains from Jebel Sahaba included in the study was described as "Negroid". [3]
A craniometric analysis by Sereno et al. (2008) indicates that Iberomaurusians were closely related to the early Holocene Capsians of the North West Africa, as well as to the early Holocene Kiffians of the Sahara. [4]
Iberomaurusian fossils excavated at the Afalou site were found to carry the Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups H or U (3/9; 33%), J (2/9; 22%), H103 (1/9; 11%), H14b1 or JT (1/9; 11%), R0a1a (1/9; 11%), and T2b (1/9; 11%). [5]
Iberomaurusian fossils excavated at the Taforalt site were found to carry the African Y-DNA haplogroups E-M78* (4/6; 66%), E-L618* (1/6; 16%), and E-M35 (1/6; 16%). Majority of individuals carried the mtDNA haplogroups U6 (6/7; 85%), while one carried M1 (1/7; 14%). [6]
Loosdrecht et al. (2018) analysed genome-wide data from seven ancient individuals from the Iberomaurusian Grotte des Pigeons site near Taforalt in north-eastern Morocco. The fossils were directly dated to between 15,100 and 13,900 calibrated years before present. The scientists found that all males belonged to haplogroup E1b1b, common among Afroasiatic males. The male specimens with sufficient nuclear DNA preservation belonged to the paternal haplogroup E1b1b1a1 (M78), with one skeleton bearing the E1b1b1a1b1 parent lineage to E-V13, one male specimen belonged to E1b1b (M215*). [6] These Y-DNA clades, 24,000 years BP, [7] had a common ancestor with the Berbers and the E1b1b1b (M123) subhaplogroup that has been observed in skeletal remains belonging to the Epipaleolithic Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures of the Levant. Maternally, the Taforalt remains bore the Eurasian markers U6a and M1b mtDNA haplogroups, which are common among modern Afroasiatic-speaking populations in Africa. A two-way admixture scenario using Natufian and modern sub-Saharan samples (including West African and East African samples) as reference populations inferred that the seven Taforalt individuals are modeled genetically as of 63.5% West Eurasian (Natufian-related) and 36.5% "sub-Saharan" African ancestry (with the latter having both West African-like and East African-like affinities), with no apparent gene flow from the Epigravettian culture of Paleolithic southern Europe. The scientists indicated that further ancient DNA testing at other Iberomaurusian archaeological sites would be necessary to determine whether the Taforalt samples were representative of the broader Iberomaurusian gene pool. [6] The Sub-Saharan African DNA in Taforalt individuals was not found to have a good proxy in any present-day or ancient Holocene African groups. [6] Jeong (2020) indicated that the Sub-Saharan African DNA of the Taforalt population has similarity with the remnant of a more basal Sub-Saharan African lineage (e.g., a basal West African lineage shared between Yoruba and Mende peoples). [8]
Iosif Lazaridis et al. (2018), as summarized by Rosa Fregel (2021), contested the conclusion of Loosdrecht (2018) and argued instead that the Iberomaurusian population of Upper Paleolithic North Africa, represented by the Taforalt sample, can be better modeled as an admixture between a Dzudzuana-like [West-Eurasian] component and an "Ancient North African" component, "that may represent an even earlier split than the Basal Eurasians." Iosif Lazaridis et al. (2018) also argued that an Iberomaurusian/Taforalt-like population contributed to the genetic composition of Natufians "and not the other way around", and that this Iberomaurusian/Taforalt lineage also contributed around 13% ancestry to modern West Africans "rather than Taforalt having ancestry from an unknown Sub-Saharan African source". Fregel (2021) summarized: "More evidence will be needed to determine the specific origin of the North African Upper Paleolithic populations." [9] [10]
Martiniano et al. (2022) later reassigned all the Taforalt samples to haplogroup E-M78 and none to E-L618, the predecessor to EV13. [11]
D’Atanasio et al. (2023) found that Iberomaurusian-like ancestry was characterizing for the unsampled "ancient Green Saharan" population about 12,000-5,000 years ago, and that modern-day Fula people derive around 30% of their ancestry from this ancient Saharan population, which was "modeled as a sister group of ancient Northern Africans, or alternatively, as an outgroup of all the “Eurasian-ancestry” enriched groups". [12]
MacDonald (2003) states: "When one considers the African populations of the Terminal Pleistocene, the seemingly unified physical type of those dwelling in North African refugia (i.e. Mechtoids) and their eventual cultural assimilation of contemporary populations living in West African coast refugia, then language homelands for Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan between the Maghreb and the Nile Valley are strongly suggested. Further, in light of the Niger-Saharan macro-phylum hypothesis (Blench, Volume III and 1995c), a sort of unity for Niger-Saharan speakers would seem likely during the Late and Terminal Pleistocene (c. 20,000–12,000 BP)…In essence, a ‘Niger-Saharan’ model, from an archaeological perspective, would progress as follows. Proto-Niger-Saharan speakers may be represented by the post-Aterian, Mechtoid refuge populations of the North African littoral and highlands (c. 20,000 BP). Language diversification would have accelerated when populations began to expand into the Sahara from North African refugia at the beginning of the Holocene (12,000–10,000 BP)." [13]
Blench (2019) states: "The linguistic affiliation of the North African forager populations who came south is difficult to establish as they probably represented a language phylum or phyla now vanished…These populations are called ‘Paleoberber’ in the literature, but there is no evidence they spoke a language in any way connected with modern Berber…Prior to the expansion of Berber and then Arabic, unknown but distinct languages would have been spoken in both the Sahara and along the North African coast…these languages can be referred to as ‘Old North African’ (ONA) with no presuppositions as to their genetic affiliation(s). It is possible they were related to the former languages of the Iberian Peninsula, such as Tartessian. Archaeologically, these must be identified with the Capsian and its predecessors, although the languages spoken in the first period of the Neolithic in the Maghrib would also have been ONA. But the completeness with which Berber eliminated ONA means little can be said about it. The Berber roots which are not of Afroasiatic origin may reflect these languages, or simply the long period of differentiation from the mainstream of the Afroasiatic lexicon." [14]
Natufian culture is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Neolithic prehistoric Levant in Western Asia, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction of agriculture. Natufian communities may be the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. Some evidence suggests deliberate cultivation of cereals, specifically rye, by the Natufian culture at Tell Abu Hureyra, the site of earliest evidence of agriculture in the world. The world's oldest known evidence of the production of bread-like foodstuff has been found at Shubayqa 1, a 14,400-year-old site in Jordan's northeastern desert, 4,000 years before the emergence of agriculture in Southwest Asia. In addition, the oldest known evidence of possible beer-brewing, dating to approximately 13,000 BP, was found in Raqefet Cave on Mount Carmel, although the beer-related residues may simply be a result of a spontaneous fermentation.
The Guanche were the indigenous inhabitants of the Spanish Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean some 100 kilometres (60 mi) to the west of modern Morocco and the North African coast. The islanders spoke the Guanche language, which is believed to have been related to the Berber languages of mainland North Africa; the language became extinct in the 17th century, soon after the islands were colonized.
The Capsian culture was a late Mesolithic and Neolithic culture centered in the Maghreb that lasted from about 8,000 to 2,700 BC. It was named after the town of Gafsa in Tunisia, which was known as Capsa in Roman times.
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) is part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, a Neolithic culture centered in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant, dating to c. 10,800 – c. 8,500 years ago, that is, 8800–6500 BC. It was typed by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon during her archaeological excavations at Jericho in the West Bank, territory of Palestine.
Haplogroup U is a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup (mtDNA). The clade arose from haplogroup R, likely during the early Upper Paleolithic. Its various subclades are found widely distributed across Northern and Eastern Europe, Central, Western and South Asia, as well as North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Canary Islands.
The genetic history of the Middle East is the subject of research within the fields of human population genomics, archaeogenetics and Middle Eastern studies. Researchers use Y-DNA, mtDNA, and other autosomal DNA tests to identify the genetic history of ancient and modern populations of Egypt, Persia, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Arabia, the Levant, and other areas.
Egypt has a long and involved demographic history. This is partly due to the territory's geographical location at the crossroads of several major cultural areas: North Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, Egypt has experienced several invasions and being part of many regional empires during its long history, including by the Canaanites, the Ancient Libyans, the Assyrians, the Kushites, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, and the Arabs.
The Proto-Afroasiatic homeland is the hypothetical place where speakers of the Proto-Afroasiatic language lived in a single linguistic community, or complex of communities, before this original language dispersed geographically and divided into separate distinct languages. Afroasiatic languages are today mostly distributed in parts of Africa, and Western Asia.
African admixture in Europe refers to the presence of human genotypes attributable to periods of human population dispersals out of Africa in the genetic history of Europe.
The Iberomaurusian is a backed bladelet lithic industry found near the coasts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. It is also known from a single major site in Libya, the Haua Fteah, where the industry is locally known as the Eastern Oranian. The Iberomaurusian seems to have appeared around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), somewhere between c. 25,000 and 23,000 cal BP. It would have lasted until the early Holocene c. 11,000 cal BP.
The genetic history of North Africa encompasses the genetic history of the people of North Africa. The most important source of gene flow to North Africa from the Neolithic Era onwards was from Western Asia, while the Sahara desert to the south and the Mediterranean Sea to the North were also important barriers to gene flow from sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Europe in prehistory. However, North Africa is connected to Western Asia via the Isthmus of Suez and the Sinai peninsula, while at the Straits of Gibraltar, North Africa and Europe are separated by only 15 km (9 mi), similarly Malta, Sicily, Canary Islands, Lampedusa and Crete are close to the coasts of North Africa.
Moroccan genetics encompasses the genetic history of the people of Morocco, and the genetic influence of this ancestry on world populations. It has been heavily influenced by geography.
The genetic history of Egypt reflects its geographical location at the crossroads of several major biocultural areas: North Africa, the Sahara, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and sub-Saharan Africa.
Taforalt, or Grotte des Pigeons, is a cave in the province of Berkane, Aït Iznasen region, Morocco, possibly the oldest cemetery in North Africa. It contained at least 34 Iberomaurusian adolescent and adult human skeletons, as well as younger ones, from the Upper Palaeolithic between 15,100 and 14,000 calendar years ago. There is archaeological evidence for Iberomaurusian occupation at the site between 23,200 and 12,600 calendar years ago, as well as evidence for Aterian occupation as old as 85,000 years.
Ifri n'Amr Ou Moussa is an archaeological site discovered in 2005, located in the rural commune of Aït Siberne, Khémisset Province, in Western Morocco. This site has revealed burials associated with both Moroccan Early Neolithic and Bell Beaker culture.
Kehf el Baroud, sometimes mistakenly spelled Kelif el Boroud, is an archaeological site in Morocco. It is located to the south of Rabat, near the Aterian industry of Dar es Soltan.
In archaeogenetics, western hunter-gatherer is a distinct ancestral component of modern Europeans, representing descent from a population of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who scattered over western, southern and central Europe, from the British Isles in the west to the Carpathians in the east, following the retreat of the ice sheet of the Last Glacial Maximum. It is closely associated and sometimes considered synonymous with the concept of the Villabruna cluster, named after Ripari Villabruna cave in Italy, known from the terminal Pleistocene of Europe, which is largely ancestral to later WHG populations.
Basal Eurasian is a proposed lineage of anatomically modern humans with reduced, or zero, archaic hominin (Neanderthal) admixture compared to other ancient non-Africans. Basal Eurasians represent a sister lineage to other Eurasians and may have originated from the Southern Middle East, specifically the Arabian Peninsula, or North Africa, and are said to have contributed ancestry to various West Eurasian, South Asian, and Central Asian as well as African groups. This Basal Eurasian component is also proposed to explain the lower archaic admixture among modern West Eurasians compared to with East Eurasians, although alternatives without the need of such Basal admixture exist as well.
The genetic history of Africa summarizes the genetic makeup and population history of African populations in Africa, composed of the overall genetic history, including the regional genetic histories of North Africa, West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa, as well as the recent origin of modern humans in Africa. The Sahara served as a trans-regional passageway and place of dwelling for people in Africa during various humid phases and periods throughout the history of Africa.
The genetic history of West Africa encompasses the genetic history of the people of West Africa. The Sahara served as a trans-regional passageway and place of dwelling for people in Africa during various humid phases and periods throughout the history of Africa.
However, a preprint from Lazaridis et al. (2018) has contested this conclusion based on new evidence from Paleolithic samples from the Dzudzuana site in Georgia (25,000 years BCE). When these samples are considered in the analysis, Taforalt can be better modeled as a mixture of a Dzudzuana component and a sub-Saharan African component. They also argue that it is the Taforalt people who contributed to the genetic composition of Natufians and not the other way around. More evidence will be needed to determine the specific origin of the North African Upper Paleolithic populations, but the presence of an ancestral U6 lineage in the Dzudzuana people is consistent with this population being related to the back migration to Africa.
Moreover, our model predicts that West Africans (represented by Yoruba) had 12.5±1.1% ancestry from a Taforalt related group rather than Taforalt having ancestry from an unknown Sub-Saharan African source; this may have mediated the limited Neanderthal admixture present in West Africans. An advantage of our model is that it allows for a local North African component in the ancestry of Taforalt, rather than deriving them exclusively from Levantine and Sub-Saharan sources. ... and Taforalt, can all be modeled as a mixture of Dzudzuana and additional 'Deep' ancestry that may represent an even earlier split than the Basal Eurasians.
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