He A wise man It has existed for at least 300,000 years, but its exact origin is still unknown. Some theories say it evolved in East Africa about 50,000 years ago and spread south, but today a new study proves this hypothesis wrong.
The study, based on the analysis of ancient genomes that lived from the Stone Age – 10,200 years ago – to 150 years ago in southern Africa, maintains that a group of individuals lived partially isolated for several hundred thousand years. By analyzing their genomes, the researchers found genetic adaptations that likely shaped the H. sapiens as a species.
The details of the study – the most extensive to date on ancient African DNA -, carried out by researchers from the University of Uppsala (Sweden) and the University of Johannesburg, were published this Wednesday in “Nature”.
“We have known for a long time that southern Africa was inhabited, but it was previously unclear whether these inhabitants were our predecessors or whether they were A wise man. We can now show that the A wise man has existed and evolved in southern Africa for a long time and that this area has played an important role in human evolution, perhaps the most important of all,” says Mattias Jakobsson, geneticist at Uppsala University and director of the study.
28 individuals
The team analyzed the ancient genomes of 28 individuals from southern Africa and compared them with contemporaries from other parts of the world and discovered that the Stone Age inhabitants of southern Africa lived in isolation for a long time.
“This group appears to have been genetically separated for at least 200,000 years and only about 1,400 years ago did clear traces of gene flow emerge in this group, when DNA from individuals from East and West Africa began to be seen in individuals from southern Africa,” details Jakobsson.
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Although no new groups migrated to southern Africa before about 1,400 years ago, genetic data suggest that members of the southern population did migrate north during some favorable climatic periods. In fact, genetic material – from about 8,000 years ago – from this southern population has been found in individuals from present-day Malawi, and it is possible that approaches from the south also occurred earlier.
A large part of the human remains analyzed were found in the Matjes River Rock Shelter (South Africa), a site with remains from about 10,000 to about 1,500 years ago and in which different tools were also found in each historical period and with different manufacturing techniques.
However, individuals are genetically practically identical throughout the entire period, that is, there is no evidence of immigration or population exchange, “quite the opposite of what happened in Europe, where cultural changes usually coincide with population migrations,” says Jakobsson.
Specific genetic changes
In the study, the researchers identified 79 DNA variants unique to the wise man different from those found in Neanderthals, Denisovans, chimpanzees and gorillas.
Seven of them, related to kidney function, were “clearly overrepresented.” The authors believe that these variants are linked to the unique human ability to cool the body through sweat, which requires a good ability to control the body’s water balance.
They also found variants involved in the immune system and neuronal growth. More than 40% of these variants are associated with neurons and brain growth, suggesting a role in cognitive evolution.
In addition, several genes were related to attention, a mental ability that could have evolved differently in the A wise man compared to Neanderthals and Denisovans.
“One of the most significant results of the study is that it suggests that the complex behaviors and thinking observed in the southern African archaeological record from about 100,000 years ago originated locally and may have subsequently filtered northwards with the genes and technologies of local hunter-gatherers,” says Marlize Lombard, an archaeologist at the University of Johannesburg and co-author of the study.
With information from EFE
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