Newly Unearthed Mummies Reveal Distinct DNA From Today’s Humans

Watch Newly Unearthed Mummies Reveal Distinct DNA From Today’s Humans - Rizzle on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Newly unearthed mummies reveal distinct DNA from today's humans.

00:04The Sahara looks hostile today, but new finds show it once teemed with life

00:09and people whose DNA defied expectations. Two 7,000-year-old Takar Kauri mummies

00:15lacked anticipated sub-Saharan genes and were closer to North African peoples

00:20who had long before diverged in present-day southwestern Libya.

00:23During the African humid period, the Sahara supported life.

00:31A group in southwestern Libya, initially thought to be genetically sub-Saharan,

00:35was found to have different ancestry through DNA analysis of two preserved mummies,

00:40as studied by the Max Planck Institute. DNA from two 7,000-year-old mummies at Takar Kauri

00:47revealed their ancestry came from a previously unknown North African lineage,

00:51diverging from sub-Saharan populations around the same time as non-African humans.

00:59Related to 15,000-year-old Taferalt individuals, Takar Kauri show rare gene flow

01:04between northern and sub-Saharan Africa and Neanderthal levels.

01:08Researchers said,

01:09Our findings suggest that pastoralism spread through cultural diffusion into a deeply divergent,

01:14isolated North African lineage that had probably been widespread in northern

01:18Africa during the late Pleistocene epoch.