Researchers who were curious about when ancient Europeans travelled to Africa followed the DNA. The route they discovered didn’t just track migration — it revealed pockets of resistance to the Neolithic revolution, as well as signs of sea-faring derring-do.
A Societal Shift
During that period, starting around 12,000 years ago, societies started shifting from hunter-gatherers to farming. But not all of them. Most farmers from Anatolia (present-day Turkey) went on the move around 7,500 years ago, with a general westward shift from the Fertile Crescent to present-day Europe and the Mediterranean region. The DNA of those migrating farmers is still highly represented in the European population today.
But a study in Nature shows that there were holdouts. Archeological data doesn’t indicate signs of agriculture in the Maghreb (the Northwest portion of Africa that now contains Morocco until about 3,000 years ago — around 7,000 years later than in the Fertile Crescent and about 5,000 years after North Africa.
The new genetic data matched that Maghreb gap perfectly, to the point that Giulio Lucarini, an archaeologist with Italy's National Research Council and an author of the paper, jumped out of his chair when he read the genetic testing results.
Genetic Confirmation
“It was a 'told you so' moment when I read the email with the genetic testing results,” says Lucarini. “Archaeological data collected by me and some of my colleagues in the Maghreb and Cyrenaica, Libya, has been demonstrating this for years, and now there was also genetic evidence to support it.”
The nine genetic samples used in the study came from three Neolithic burial sites in Tunisia and one in Algeria. Some Tunisian samples suggest traces of European ancestry — the first genetic link showing that Europeans crossed the Mediterranean Sea.
Early Evidence of Sea-Faring
Rock fragments discovered at one of the burial sites also strongly suggest a crossing since they appear native to a volcanic island in the Strait of Sicily. No archeological evidence of boats has been found in the area, but there is other evidence of sea-faring Sicilians, as well as 7,000-year-old dugout canoes found in Italy’s Lake Bracciano. Both are pieces of evidence that show crossings were possible.
The combination of genetic and archeological evidence shows that civilization’s spread and transformation is both more complicated and more fascinating than previously thought.
Read More: Underwater Caves in Sicily Show Signs of Early Humans From 17,000 Years Ago
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Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul Smaglik spent over 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life science policy and global scientific career issues. He began his career in newspapers, but switched to scientific magazines. His work has appeared in publications including Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
