来自绿色撒哈拉沙漠的古老DNA揭示了祖先的北非血统，这一成果由德国马克斯·普朗克进化人类学研究所Johannes Krause小组经过不懈努力而取得。该项研究成果发表在2025年4月2日出版的《自然》上。

在这里，研究小组报告了来自中撒哈拉的古代基因组数据，这些数据来自于埋在利比亚西南部Takarkori岩石避难所的两个大约7000年前的田园新石器时代女性个体。大多数Takarkori人的祖先来自一个以前不为人知的北非遗传谱系，这个遗传谱系与撒哈拉以南非洲的遗传谱系在非洲以外的现代人类大约同时分化，并且在其存在的大部分时间里保持孤立。这两个Takarkori人的祖先都与摩洛哥Taforalt洞穴中1.5万年前的觅食者的祖先密切相关，这些人与伊比利亚摩尔人的石器时代有关，早于AHP时代。

Takarkori和Iberomaurtheian相关个体与撒哈拉以南世系的亲缘关系同样遥远，这表明在AHP期间，撒哈拉以南地区向北非的基因流动有限。塔福拉尔人有一半的尼安德特人非非洲混血儿，与之相反，Takarkori显示的尼安德特人血统比黎凡特农民少10倍，但比当代撒哈拉以南地区的基因组多得多。他们的研究结果表明，游牧文化通过文化扩散传播到一个高度分化、孤立的北非世系，这个世系可能在更新世晚期在北非广泛分布。

研究人员表示，尽管撒哈拉沙漠是当今最干旱的地区之一，但在14500年至5000年的非洲湿润时期（AHP），它曾是一片绿色的大草原。在全新世中期，水体促进了人类的居住和畜牧业的传播。DNA在该地区很少保存完好，限制了对撒哈拉遗传历史和人口统计过去的了解。

附：英文原文

Title: Ancient DNA from the Green Sahara reveals ancestral North African lineage

Author: Salem, Nada, van de Loosdrecht, Marieke S., Smer, Arev Pelin, Vai, Stefania, Hbner, Alexander, Peter, Benjamin, Bianco, Raffaela A., Lari, Martina, Modi, Alessandra, Al-Faloos, Mohamed Faraj Mohamed, Turjman, Mustafa, Bouzouggar, Abdeljalil, Tafuri, Mary Anne, Manzi, Giorgio, Rotunno, Rocco, Prfer, Kay, Ringbauer, Harald, Caramelli, David, di Lernia, Savino, Krause, Johannes

Issue&Volume: 2025-04-02

Abstract: Although it is one of the most arid regions today, the Sahara Desert was a green savannah during the African Humid Period (AHP) between 14,500 and 5,000years before present, with water bodies promoting human occupation and the spread of pastoralism in the middle Holocene epoch1. DNA rarely preserves well in this region, limiting knowledge of the Sahara’s genetic history and demographic past. Here we report ancient genomic data from the Central Sahara, obtained from two approximately 7,000-year-old Pastoral Neolithic female individuals buried in the Takarkori rock shelter in southwestern Libya. The majority of Takarkori individuals’ ancestry stems from a previously unknown North African genetic lineage that diverged from sub-Saharan African lineages around the same time as present-day humans outside Africa and remained isolated throughout most of its existence. Both Takarkori individuals are closely related to ancestry first documented in 15,000-year-old foragers from Taforalt Cave, Morocco2, associated with the Iberomaurusian lithic industry and predating the AHP. Takarkori and Iberomaurusian-associated individuals are equally distantly related to sub-Saharan lineages, suggesting limited gene flow from sub-Saharan to Northern Africa during the AHP. In contrast to Taforalt individuals, who have half the Neanderthal admixture of non-Africans, Takarkori shows ten times less Neanderthal ancestry than Levantine farmers, yet significantly more than contemporary sub-Saharan genomes. Our findings suggest that pastoralism spread through cultural diffusion into a deeply divergent, isolated North African lineage that had probably been widespread in Northern Africa during the late Pleistocene epoch.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08793-7

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08793-7