Ancient DNA dating to between 16,000–18,000 years ago—the oldest human DNA to be extracted in Africa so far—reveals that populations of hunter-gatherers mixed and mingled 50,000 to 20,000 years ago, moving long distances across the continent. This supports the idea that demographic changes played a role in the transition from the Middle to the Later Stone Age, a time when new types of tools emerged and information was exchanged over long distances, a study published today (February 23) in Nature reports.
“This is a very exciting paper because it shows that it is possible to extract ancient human DNA from samples of human bone and teeth from Africa dating back to the last 20,000 years. What is equally exciting is that the authors have managed to obtain genomewide data, which means nuclear DNA, the highly informative section of our genome,” Tom Higham, an archaeologist at the University of Vienna in ...
