New paper out today in @Nature with @prendydigs, @smaceachern2, @ICrevecoeur & others! Pleased to be part of this team presenting the 1st #ancientDNA sequences out of West/Central Africa from 4 kids who have us rethinking #archaeology & #humanorigins. nature.com/articles/s4158… 1/n
We sequenced #aDNA from 2 pairs of kids buried at the amazing site of Shum Laka in the ‘Grassfields’ region of Cameroon – 4 & 15 year old boys who died ~8000 years ago, & an 8yo boy & 4yo girl from ~3000 years ago. The site spans the important Stone to Metal Age transition. 2/n
Cameroon is VERY interesting to archaeologists because that’s where Bantu languages likely originated, and the people who spoke them who spread out across much of sub-Saharan Africa after ~4000 years ago. Were the children at Shum Laka part of this population? 3/n
Surprisingly, no! None of them are closely related to present-day Bantu language speakers. Instead, they were part of a separate population that lived in the region for thousands of years & was eventually almost entirely replaced by people related to today's Cameroonians. 4/n
Another major finding is that these lineages are DEEP. One of the boys carries the Y chromosome haplogroup A00 which is rarely found outside West Cameroon today. This is the first time it’s been observed in #aDNA. 5/n
The A00 haplogroup split from other lineages very early, around 300,000-200,000 years ago! This research shows that the oldest known lineage of human males was in West/Central Africa at least 8000 years ago, & perhaps much earlier. 6/n
These data let us construct a deep-time model for our species’ origins with a “quadruple radiation” around 250-200,000 years ago, with lineages leading to today’s central African foragers, today’s southern African foragers, all other people, & a mysterious “ghost lineage.” 7/n
This research shakes things up! Our species’ deep ancestry in Africa is a lot more complicated than we thought. And where we expected to see big changes, instead there’s continuity. Every new #aDNA sequence changes our views on the past. And this time it's thanks to 4 kids! /end
One more important thing to add - for anyone without journal access, you can download the paper here: reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hm… #aDNA #ShumLaka
