The peopling of the last Green Sahara revealed by high-coverage resequencing of trans-Saharan patrilineages
2018/02/12 by Eugenia D’Atanasio, Beniamino Trombetta, M. Di Bonito +14 · 43 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Social Sciences · #Forensic and Genetic Research #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology #Genetic diversity and population structure #Haplogroup #Biology #Arid #Holocene #Out of africa #Evolutionary biology #Demographic history #Gene pool #Geography #Ecology #Demography #Haplotype #Gene #Population #Genotype #Genetics #Genetic variation #Paleontology #Genetic diversity
paper · pdf · doi:10.1186/s13059-018-1393-5
published in Genome biology 19(1), 20 (BioMed Central)
openalex publication_date 2018/02/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Little is known about the peopling of the Sahara during the Holocene climatic optimum, when the desert was replaced by a fertile environment. RESULTS: In order to investigate the role of the last Green Sahara in the peopling of Africa, we deep-sequence the whole non-repetitive portion of the Y chromosome in 104 males selected as representative of haplogroups which are currently found to the north and to the south of the Sahara. We identify 5,966 mutations, from which we extract 142 informative markers then genotyped in about 8,000 subjects from 145 African, Eurasian and African American populations. We find that the coalescence age of the trans-Saharan haplogroups dates back to the last Green Sahara, while most northern African or sub-Saharan clades expanded locally in the subsequent arid phase. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the Green Sahara promoted human movements and demographic expansions, possibly linked to the adoption of pastoralism. Comparing our results with previously reported genome-wide data, we also find evidence for a sex-biased sub-Saharan contribution to northern Africans, suggesting that historical events such as the trans-Saharan slave trade mainly contributed to the mtDNA and autosomal gene pool, whereas the northern African paternal gene pool was mainly shaped by more ancient events.
Citations
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