A shoutout to the amazing team behind this work, from field archaeology in Libya to genome sequencing in Leipzig and Florence. Huge thanks to everyone at @MPI_EVA_Leipzig, especially my supervisor @HaraldRingbauer, and to @alexhbnr and @rocco_rot for their crucial contribution.

We have also prepared an Arabic summary to reach a wider audience, particularly in North Africa. You can find it in Supplementary Note 3. (9/n)

We also found that this ancient North African ancestry no longer exists in pure form, but it persists as an admixed component in present-day North Africans and some Sahel populations, especially among the Fulani. (8/n).

These results support a cultural spread of pastoralism into the Central Sahara rather than one involving large-scale migration. Herders adopted livestock and techniques without significant movement of people. (7/n).

One of the key findings: Takarkori individuals had 10x less Neanderthal ancestry than Levantine farmers, but still more than present-day sub-Saharan Africans. This implies limited gene flow from out-of-Africa sources, possibly via the Levant. (6/n)

Contrary to earlier ideas, we found no genetic evidence of major gene flow between sub-Saharan and North African groups during the Green Sahara. The desert didn’t act as a genetic bridge, but more of a barrier, even during its greenest phase. (5/n).

We found these women represented a deeply isolated North African lineage, which is closely related to 15,000-year-old foragers from Taforalt Cave (Morocco), suggesting population continuity in North Africa across climate shifts. (4/n)

We analyzed DNA from two naturally mummified women buried in Takarkori rock shelter in southwestern Libya. The DNA preservation in the Sahara is extremely rare, but we made it work with targeted SNP capture of modern archaeogenetics methods, including variant enrichment. (3/n)

During the African Humid Period (~14,500–5,000 years ago), the Sahara was green and full of lakes, rivers, and life. It supported foragers and early herders and until now, we had no ancient autosomal DNA from this region. (2/n)

I'm beyond excited to share our new paper in Nature! We sequenced the first ancient human autosomal genomes from the Central Sahara, two ~7,000-year-old individuals from Takarkori in Libya, revealing a long-isolated North African lineage: Short thread: 1/n.

Stay tuned.

Race, genetics and pseudoscience: an explainer

The famous “Mocha” coffee gained its name from the the Yemeni port of Al-Mukha, which was the link between coffee lovers and farmers in Yemen!. #InternationalCoffeeDay2019

تنقيب الماضي عن طريق الحمض النووي من الرفات البشري، وكيف غير هذا التنقيب من رؤيتنا للتاريخ؟.مقال جميل يتحدث فيه بعض علماء الاثار عن الثورة التي احدثتها تكنولوجيا الحمض النووي القديم في أعمالهم

RT @Qafzeh: How the skull of humanity’s oldest known ancestor is changing our understanding of evolution @HesterHanegraef .

RT @NobelPrize: "The research counts, not the journal!" . Nobel Laureates speak out against impact factors.

قليل من العلم يكفي لتغيير حالنا إلى الأفضل ولكن فقط حين نعمل به ونستمر عليه.احرص على أن يكون لك تدوينة بعد كل جلسة تصفح انترنت/كتاب/جوال.

أكثر من 700 بحث علمي يؤكد ارتباط قلة الحركة والنشاط البدني ب #سرطان_القولون. http://t.co/Xg6PTK88y9.

ماأجمل الشعرى اليمانية والشامية ونجم سهيل في هذا المساء! الصورةعبر تطبيق star walk لرصد الأجرام السماوية.#تفكر http://t.co/EwjGknVTvI.