Stone Age Sailing

Scientists found the first clear genetic evidence of contact between early European and North African populations. 

A new study of the DNA from the bones and teeth of nine people who lived between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago in the eastern Maghreb – modern-day Tunisia and Algeria – found the 8,500-year-old remains of one ancient human who shared about six percent of his DNA with European hunter-gatherers.  

This suggests that European hunter-gatherers might have reached North Africa on long wooden canoes about 8,500 years ago, and the two populations likely interacted more than previously thought, explained Live Science. 

While some biological anthropologists advanced this theory years ago based on the morphological analysis of skeletal traits, the theory was considered highly speculative, explained study co-author Ron Pinhasi. 

“Thirty years later, our new genomic data has validated these early hypotheses,” he said in a statement. “This is really exciting.” 

The Stone Age is associated with the use of stone tools that began approximately three million years ago – before modern humans existed – and ended around 5,000 years ago, when early humans started using metal tools. At the time, humans in Europe and North Africa mostly lived as hunter-gatherers and gradually transitioned to farming and complex societies in the Neolithic, approximately between 10,000 and 2,000 BC. 

Until now, archaeologists didn’t have much information on how the transition to farming took place in modern-day North Africa and most of their data came from sites in the Western Maghreb – modern-day Morocco. 

“There’s not been much of a North African story,” study co-author David Reich told Nature. “It was a huge hole.”  

Previous research showed that early humans in Western Maghreb had high levels of European farmer ancestry – genetically different from hunter-gatherers – because of the movement of farmers via the Gibraltar Strait about 7,000 years ago. 

According to the new study, early humans in Eastern Maghreb had minimal European farmer ancestry and mostly remained genetically isolated, apart from some earlier European hunter-gatherer influences. 

This suggests that Eastern Maghreb was genetically and culturally more resilient compared with Western Maghreb, in line with previous studies showing that farming was only fully adopted in Eastern Maghreb after 1,000 BC.