(Johannesburg) Researchers have reconstructed the oldest human genomes from South Africa to date, from two people who lived about 10,000 years ago, shedding light on the region’s demographic history, one of the study’s authors said Sunday.
The genetic sequences come from a man and a woman whose remains were discovered in the Oakhurst rock shelter near the southern coastal town of George, said Victoria Gibbon, professor of biological anthropology at the University of Cape Town (UCT).
They are among 13 sequences reconstructed from people whose remains were found in this shelter and who lived between 1,300 and 10,000 years ago.
Before these discoveries, the oldest genomes reconstructed in the region dated back around 2,000 years.
The Oakhurst study surprisingly reveals that the oldest genomes were genetically similar to those of the San and Khoekhoe groups who live in the same region today, UCT said in a statement.
“Similar studies in Europe have revealed a history of large-scale genetic changes due to human movements over the past 10,000 years,” study lead author Joscha Gretzinger said in the statement.
“These new results from southern Africa are very different and suggest a long history of relative genetic stability,” said Gretzinger, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
Current DNA data shows that this only changed around 1,200 years ago, when new arrivals introduced pastoralism, agriculture and new languages to the region, and began interacting with local hunter-gatherer groups.
Although some of the oldest traces of modern humans can be found in southern Africa, they are generally poorly preserved, Mr.me Gibbon. But new technologies now make it possible to obtain this DNA, she added.
Unlike Europe and Asia, where the genomes of thousands of people have been reconstructed, fewer than two dozen ancient genomes have been found in southern Africa, specifically in Botswana, South Africa and Zambia.
“Sites like this are rare in South Africa, and Oakhurst has provided insight into the movements and relationships of local people across the landscape for almost 9,000 years,” Mr.me Gibbon.