Ancient DNA Illuminates Pastoralism’s Rise in Africa

In our new research, our team sequenced the genomes of 41 people buried at archaeological sites in Kenya and Tanzania, more than doubling the number of ancient individuals with genome-wide data from sub-Saharan Africa. We obtained radiocarbon dates from the bones of 35 of these people—important because direct dates on human remains are virtually nonexistent in East Africa. After we grouped individuals based on the lifestyles we inferred from associated archaeological evidence, we compared their ancient genomes to those of hundreds of living people and a few dozen ancient people from across Africa and the adjacent Middle East.

Source: www.sapiens.org