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The iron age farmers, unsurprisingly, are very closely related to modern-day Bantu groups, and likely the ancestors of modern Zulu. The hunter-gatherers appear to be related to modern day Khoisan peoples, but with a twist. As some earlier studies indicated, all modern Khoisan people seem to have had some admixture around 1,000 years ago with East African herding peoples who also had some West Eurasian admixture, with anywhere between 9% and 22% of the modern Khoisan genome from these groups. The East African group which mixed into the Khoisan seems to have had around 31% of its ancestry from West Eurasia - probably ultimately farming populations from the Near East. Modern day Khoe people have more of this ancestry, which makes sense given they have a herding lifestyle, but even isolated hunter-gatherer groups picked it up.
The common origin between these more ancient "pure" Khoisan found in this study and the rest of mankind was dated to somewhere beyond 260,000 years ago. This is around 55,000 years older than previously estimated, because although modern day Khoisan are the most divergent human population, their admixture within the last thousand years with East Africans and West Eurasians pulled them closer to the rest of mankind.
Most interestingly to me, their model finds evidence of a potential new ghost population. Termed "Basal Human" (don't take that as a slur) this group split off even before the ancestors of the Khoisan and died out as a distinct group, but contributed to 31% of the ancestry of modern West Africans. This could help to explain a lot of unusual findings regarding African genetics - like East Africans showing closer relation to Eurasians, and signs of a "back to Africa" migration during the ice ages. Also that random African-American guy who was found in 2013 to have a super-basal Y chromosome (with ultimate origins in the Cameroon) which is the most basal, sharing a common ancestor with other men 270,000 years ago.
Regardless, the key point is that all modern "races" are a mixture of many different peoples, and we should be wary of using present-day diversity to understand the past.
The iron age farmers, unsurprisingly, are very closely related to modern-day Bantu groups, and likely the ancestors of modern Zulu. The hunter-gatherers appear to be related to modern day Khoisan peoples, but with a twist. As some earlier studies indicated, all modern Khoisan people seem to have had some admixture around 1,000 years ago with East African herding peoples who also had some West Eurasian admixture, with anywhere between 9% and 22% of the modern Khoisan genome from these groups. The East African group which mixed into the Khoisan seems to have had around 31% of its ancestry from West Eurasia - probably ultimately farming populations from the Near East. Modern day Khoe people have more of this ancestry, which makes sense given they have a herding lifestyle, but even isolated hunter-gatherer groups picked it up.
The common origin between these more ancient "pure" Khoisan found in this study and the rest of mankind was dated to somewhere beyond 260,000 years ago. This is around 55,000 years older than previously estimated, because although modern day Khoisan are the most divergent human population, their admixture within the last thousand years with East Africans and West Eurasians pulled them closer to the rest of mankind.
Most interestingly to me, their model finds evidence of a potential new ghost population. Termed "Basal Human" (don't take that as a slur) this group split off even before the ancestors of the Khoisan and died out as a distinct group, but contributed to 31% of the ancestry of modern West Africans. This could help to explain a lot of unusual findings regarding African genetics - like East Africans showing closer relation to Eurasians, and signs of a "back to Africa" migration during the ice ages. Also that random African-American guy who was found in 2013 to have a super-basal Y chromosome (with ultimate origins in the Cameroon) which is the most basal, sharing a common ancestor with other men 270,000 years ago.
Regardless, the key point is that all modern "races" are a mixture of many different peoples, and we should be wary of using present-day diversity to understand the past.
I agree that is the most interesting part of the study.
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