Deep genetic structure of Africa reveals unique ancestry of the Angolan Namib

[wglb]

https://phys.org/news/2023-09-deep-genetic-africa-reveals-unique.html

[suzzer99]

> Previous studies revealed that foragers from the Kalahari desert descend from an ancestral population who was the first to split from all other extant humans.

I'd be interested to know if they have a rough time frame for when this happened. 100k years ago? 500k years ago? I assume the neanderthals, denisovans and florensians were already around at this point?

[AbrahamParangi → suzzer99]

I believe the Khoi-San split from other human populations around 250kya. For context all populations outside of Africa diverged less than 70kya and the Neanderthalis/Sapiens split happened closer to 750kya.

[acjohnson55]

> was able to interview what may well be the last two speakers of Kwadi.

So much of the past has disappeared or is in the process of disappearing.

[pvg → acjohnson55]

It's sort of the other way round, no? Foragers in the region today are the descendants of foragers in the region 100k+ years ago. For 'continuous organized human activity in an area' it dwarfs anything else I can think of.

[whoisthemachine → acjohnson55]

Luckily there's always more of it!

[gloryjulio → acjohnson55]

The entropy will get you eventually

[FredPret → acjohnson55]

'twas ever thus