Researcher during his works
Newswise — According to a recent publication in Nature, a study reveals that cultural exchanges and intermixing among African hunter-gatherers, Neolithic European farmers, and East-Saharan herders played a pivotal role in shaping lifestyle changes, cultural expressions, and genetic composition in the Maghreb region from 5500 to 4500 BC.
For ages, Archaeology has sought to elucidate the process and motives behind humanity's shift from sole reliance on hunting and gathering to cultivating crops and raising livestock. What led to the occurrence of the "Neolithic Revolution"? From where did this transformative event originate, and how did it disseminate?
To address a portion of these inquiries and, in accordance with the scientific method, to raise additional queries, a global consortium comprising the Universities of Cordoba, Huelva, and Burgos has recently released findings in the prestigious journal Nature. This new research challenges certain misconceptions regarding the inception of the Neolithic era and, consequently, the emergence of agriculture in North Africa approximately 7,500 years ago.
Until recently, there was a lively debate among archaeologists regarding the origins of agriculture and livestock in North Africa. The question at hand was whether these developments occurred independently, with the local inhabitants managing to domesticate indigenous species and develop techniques similar to those employed in the Tigris and Euphrates valleys. Alternatively, it was considered whether the process was primarily a result of cultural transmission from other regions, such as the Near East or the Mediterranean. However, a groundbreaking study led by the University of Uppsala and Burgos, in collaboration with the Moroccan Institute of Archaeology and Heritage Sciences (INSAP), has unveiled a more nuanced truth. The emergence of the Neolithic in North Africa was a remarkably intricate and multifaceted process, unlike any observed thus far in the Old World through the examination of archaeological evidence.
The uniqueness of the study lies in its combined genomic analysis of Neolithic human remains from three pivotal locations: the Kaf Taht el-Ghar cave, in Tetouan; Ifri n'Amr Ou Moussa, in Khémisset province; and Skhirat-Rouazi, south of Rabat. In the initial site, the examination and examination of a small cluster of individuals, who descended from European farmers settling in the region approximately 7400 years ago, were conducted. At the second site, the confirmation of a burial ground within a cave was obtained, where individuals of solely indigenous lineage were interred a couple of centuries later; specifically, farmers with pottery who inherited these novel techniques from the aforementioned migrant groups. Lastly, at the third site, a prehistoric burial ground dating back a millennium later, genomes associated with the expansion of pastoral communities from the Fertile Crescent were identified, a phenomenon that Archaeology had been discovering across modern-day North Africa.
The analysis and examination of the remains, along with their genomic research, conducted by the Iberian-Swedish-Moroccan team (led by Luciana Simões, a Portuguese researcher at the University of Uppsala), have provided insights into the biological and cultural diversity of the ancient inhabitants of the region over 7,000 years ago. This research has shed light on the factors contributing to the success of Neolithization in North Africa. The study, published in Nature, features co-authors Rafael M. Martínez from the University of Cordoba, Juan Carlos Vera from the University of Huelva, and Cristina Valdiosera, co-director of the project from the University of Burgos. It explicitly emphasizes that well before the Romanization of the western Mediterranean and long before the territory's Islamization, human groups on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar already shared knowledge, cultural aspects, and genetic heritage.
As per Rafael M. Martínez from the University of Córdoba, this research marks a significant milestone in our comprehension of various aspects concerning the diffusion of Neolithic practices in the region, effectively settling the question regarding its origins in Andalusia and the Maghreb. The study has clarified the unidirectional nature of the process, likely originating from Iberia. The discovery of decorated ceramics in the earliest Moroccan pottery aligns them with the broader collection of adorned ceramics found in the Western Mediterranean, including the Italian Peninsula, Southern France, and the Iberian Mediterranean. Regarding the "pastoral" element observed in the Skhirat necropolis, Martínez explains that the ceramics found in these tombs, which differ significantly from the older decorated ceramics, bear similarities to styles previously documented across the Sahara region, characterized by rope patterns. A study conducted by Martínez's team in 2018 had already identified a connection between this type of ceramics and pastoralist communities or, at the very least, with origins distinct from the earlier findings.
Juan Carlos Vera, on the other hand, emphasized that genomics has provided further confirmation of what archaeology has been asserting for the past decade. He stated that while the genetic sampling campaign took place in 2016, the comprehensive understanding of cultural, economic, and social changes, as well as population movements and mixing, would not have been possible without the archaeological work conducted in Morocco between 2011 and 2013. This work was part of the ERC AGRIWESTMED project, led by archaeobotanical expert Leonor Peña-Chocarro at CSIC (Madrid), in collaboration with the Moroccan INSAP coordinated by Youssef Bokbot. The project enabled the identification of ancient cereal and legume seeds cultivated in various Neolithic contexts, indicating a diffusion process. However, it was not possible at that time to ascertain the full extent of the human aspect of the process or the physical arrival of immigrants to the territory and their genetic contribution. The current research, however, provides the evidence and demonstrates the impact of these immigrants' genes, as stated by the professor from the University of Huelva.
Cristina Valdiosera, a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the University of Burgos and co-director of the project alongside Mattias Jakobsson, highlighted the significant implications of this research in the genomic history of North Africa. The Maghreb settlers, known historically as the Berbers (imazighen), have a genetic makeup comprising three primary components. The first component is attributed to African hunter-gatherers, who have been present in the Taforalt cave since the Upper Paleolithic period. The second component corresponds to European Neolithic farmers, who ultimately trace their ancestry back to the earliest agriculturalists in Anatolia. These farmers migrated across the Mediterranean and likely arrived in Morocco from the Iberian Peninsula around 5500 BC. The third component consists of pastoralist peoples who migrated westward and southward through the Sinai Peninsula from the Fertile Crescent. They reached the Moroccan Atlantic region approximately one thousand years later. Valdiosera further suggests that the fact that Berber and Semitic languages belong to the Afro-Asian linguistic family could be a consequence of the observed genomic history.
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