Basal West African
Basal West African is a hypothetical line of descent[1][2] that is no longer extant.[3]
History
Utilizing Western Africans (e.g., Esan of Nigeria, Mende of Sierra Leone, western Gambians), the divergence of a set of archaic humans, numbering around 25,000 or between 23,000 and 27,000, from the common ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals is approximated to have occurred between 1,020,000 BP and 360,000 BP.[4] Between 124,000 BP and 0 BP, 2% – 19% of the genes may have introgressed into ancestors of modern Africans as a result of admixture with these archaic humans.[4] Modern Western Africans (e.g., Yoruba of Ibadan, Nigeria, Mende of Sierra Leone) may have more ancestry from these archaic humans as a result of their ancestry from Basal West Africans.[4]
Even before 200,000 BP to 300,000 BP, when the ancestors of the modern San split from modern humans, the group to split the most early from modern humans may have been Basal West Africans.[5] Yet, Basal West Africans did not split before Neanderthals split from modern humans.[5]
West African Hunter-Gatherers, Khoisan, and Taforalts
While a less simpler modeling (without Basal West Africans) for the ancestry of the Shum Laka foragers was composed of ancient Taforalts from the Iberomaurusian culture and modern West Africans, among other types of modeling, one modeled the ancestry for the Shum Laka foragers as 65% Basal West African and 35% West African hunter-gatherer from western Central Africa.[6] However, there is an absence of Basal West African ancestry in modern hunter-gatherers of Cameroon.[6]
The peoples of southern Africa (e.g., Khoisan), who are closer in ancestry to peoples of East Africa, are more distant in ancestry to peoples of Western Africa.[1][2] While contending with the model that supports Southern Africans as the earliest group to split from modern humans, Basal West Africans, as a hypothetical lineage, support two models of equal likelihood – an early basal group from Eastern Africa, which was part of an ancient genetic structure in Africa, are part of the modern ancestry of modern Western Africans (e.g., Yoruba, Mende) or the admixed ancestry of modern Western Africans (e.g., Yoruba, Mende) are the result of early migratory basal groups from different parts of Africa (i.e., Southeastern Africa, Western Africa).[1][2]
In addition to having similarity with the remnant of a more basal Sub-Saharan African lineage (e.g., a Basal West African lineage shared between Yoruba and Mende peoples),[5][7] the Sub-Saharan African DNA in the Taforalts of the Iberomaurusian culture may be best represented by modern West Africans (e.g., Yoruba).[7]
Descendants
Yoruba and Mende peoples descend from Basal West Africans and another set of ancestors akin to East Africans and Non-Africans, which is indicative of migration from East Africa.[5] Yoruba people have less ancestry from Basal West Africans than Mende people do,[5] which have a large amount of ancestry.[8] More specifically, Yoruba people have 9% Basal West African ancestry and Mende people have 13% Basal West African ancestry.[3]
References
- ^ a b c Capelli, Cristian; Montinaro, Francesco (October 24, 2018). "Genetics and Southern African History". Oxford University Research Archive. p. 7. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.446. S2CID 134983982.
- ^ a b c Montinaro, Francesco; Capelli, Cristian (2018). "The evolutionary history of Southern Africa". Current Opinion in Genetics & Development. 53: 160. doi:10.1016/j.gde.2018.11.003. PMID 30522870. S2CID 54483869.
- ^ a b Vidal, Gerard Serra (2018). "Insights into the human demographic history of Africa through whole-genome sequence analysis" (PDF). Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona. p. 162. S2CID 108974583.
- ^ a b c Durvasula, Arun; Sankararaman, Sriram (2020). "Recovering signals of ghost archaic introgression in African populations". Science Advances. 6 (7): eaax5097. Bibcode:2020SciA....6.5097D. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aax5097. ISSN 2375-2548. OCLC 8538353312. PMC 7015685. PMID 32095519. S2CID 211472946.
- ^ a b c d e Skoglund, Pontus; et al. (2017). "Reconstructing Prehistoric African Population Structure". Cell. 171 (1): 59–71.e21. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2017.08.049. ISSN 0092-8674. OCLC 7144495602. PMC 5679310. PMID 28938123. S2CID 1257429.
- ^ a b Lipson, Mark; et al. (2020). "Ancient West African foragers in the context of African population history". Nature. 577 (7792): 668–669. Bibcode:2020Natur.577..665L. doi:10.1038/s41586-020-1929-1. ISSN 0028-0836. OCLC 8516105991. PMC 8386425. PMID 31969706. S2CID 210862788.
- ^ a b Jeong, Choongwon (2020). "Current Trends in Ancient DNA Study: Beyond Human Migration in and Around Europe". The Handbook of Mummy Studies: New Frontiers in Scientific and Cultural Perspectives. Springer Nature. p. 6. doi:10.1007/978-981-15-1614-6_10-1. ISBN 978-981-15-1614-6. OCLC 1182512815. S2CID 226555687.
- ^ Wonkam, Ambroise; et al. (2022). "Exome sequencing of families from Ghana reveals known and candidate hearing impairment genes". Communications Biology. 5 (1): 369. doi:10.1038/s42003-022-03326-8. OCLC 9478623435. PMC 9019055. PMID 35440622. S2CID 248264573.