2016/11/23 by Marc Haber, Massimo Mezzavilla, Anders Bergström +11 · 97 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Social Sciences · #Forensic and Genetic Research #Race, Genetics, and Society #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Holocene #Genetic diversity #Diversity (politics) #Geography #Evolutionary biology #Genetics #Biology #Genealogy #Demography #Archaeology #History #Anthropology #Sociology #Population
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2016.10.012
published in The American Journal of Human Genetics 99(6), 1316-1324 (Elsevier BV)
openalex publication_date 2016/11/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Understanding human genetic diversity in Africa is important for interpreting the evolution of all humans, yet vast regions in Africa, such as Chad, remain genetically poorly investigated. Here, we use genotype data from 480 samples from Chad, the Near East, and southern Europe, as well as whole-genome sequencing from 19 of them, to show that many populations today derive their genomes from ancient African-Eurasian admixtures. We found evidence of early Eurasian backflow to Africa in people speaking the unclassified isolate Laal language in southern Chad and estimate from linkage-disequilibrium decay that this occurred 4,750-7,200 years ago. It brought to Africa a Y chromosome lineage (R1b-V88) whose closest relatives are widespread in present-day Eurasia; we estimate from sequence data that the Chad R1b-V88 Y chromosomes coalesced 5,700-7,300 years ago. This migration could thus have originated among Near Eastern farmers during the African Humid Period. We also found that the previously documented Eurasian backflow into Africa, which occurred ∼3,000 years ago and was thought to be mostly limited to East Africa, had a more westward impact affecting populations in northern Chad, such as the Toubou, who have 20%-30% Eurasian ancestry today. We observed a decline in heterozygosity in admixed Africans and found that the Eurasian admixture can bias inferences on their coalescent history and confound genetic signals from adaptation and archaic introgression.