TIL that the races of Sub-Saharan Africa are apparently closer to Neanderthals and Denisovans than groups that actually interbred with them. Makes me more certain in my belief that the ghost hominid is homo heidelbergensis, but I'm not sure if that's valid. Also, I can't help but notice that this partially aligns with these estimates for archaic admixture among SSA pops, with Pygmy's being the most "archaic": https://youtu.be/ooSRTGBsL-0?si=L-1vKKdaf5Zpf7S4
>>16935956>>16935957Am I tripping or does this also imply that Neolithic and Iron Age Kenyan specimens were Eurasian?I know we know modern Ethiopians/East Africans are heavily mixed with Caucasian, but I didn't expect a non-African colony in Kenya that far back, I need to look up Kenyan archeogenetics ASAP.
>>16935963You might not be. I'll have to see for myself.
>>16935963>>16935968Apparently I wasn't tripping, the Pastoral Neolithic/Iron Age Kenyan samples are similar enough to Neolithic North Africa they simply look out of place among Subsaharans and more in line with those of Eurasia.Note that the Takarkori DNA used as reference here is a particularly rare and isolated branch of North Africans:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takarkori#Ancient_DNA>The study concluded that the Takarkori people represented/mostly derive from an extinct population native to North Africa that diverged there before the Out-of-Africa migration that gave rise to Eurasians, but never left Africa and became mostly isolated (both from sub-Saharan African and Eurasian groups). The Tarkakori people were modeled as deriving 93% of their ancestry from this unknown African group and 7% from a Natufian-like population from the Middle East.So it's quite remarkable that Neolithic samples down in fucking Kenya shows any significant affinity to them.
