The transition from hunting–gathering to agriculture in Nubia: dental evidence for and against selection, population continuity and discontinuity
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Published:2021-06-09
Issue:1952
Volume:288
Page:20210969
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ISSN:0962-8452
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Container-title:Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
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language:en
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Short-container-title:Proc. R. Soc. B.
Author:
Irish Joel D.1ORCID,
Usai Donatella2
Affiliation:
1. Research Centre in Evolutionary Anthropology and Palaeoecology, School of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool L3 3AF, UK
2. Centro Studi Sudanesi e Sub-Sahariani ONLUS, Strada Canizzano, 128/D, 31100, Treviso, Italy
Abstract
Some researchers posit population continuity between Late Palaeolithic hunter–gatherers of the late Pleistocene and Holocene agriculturalists from Lower (northern) Nubia, in northeast Africa. Substantial craniodental differences in these time-successive groups are suggested to result from
in situ
evolution. Specifically, these populations are considered a model example for subsistence-related selection worldwide in the transition to agriculture. Others question continuity, with findings indicating that the largely homogeneous Holocene populations differ significantly from late Pleistocene Lower Nubians. If the latter are representative of the local populace, post-Pleistocene discontinuity is implied. So who was ancestral to the Holocene agriculturalists? Dental morphological analyses of 18 samples (1075 individuals), including one dated to the 12th millennium BCE from Al Khiday, near the Upper Nubian border, may provide an answer. It is the first Late Palaeolithic sample (
n
= 55) recovered within the region in approximately 50 years. Using the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System to record traits and multivariate statistics to estimate biological affinities, Al Khiday is comparable to several Holocene samples, yet also highly divergent from contemporaneous Lower Nubians. Thus, population continuity is indicated after all, but with late Pleistocene Upper—rather than Lower Nubians as originally suggested—assuming dental traits are adequate proxies for ancient DNA.
Funder
Universities of Padova, Milano and Parma
National Science Foundation
Ministero degli Affari Esteri e della Cooperazione Internazionale
Bioanthropology Foundation
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences
American Museum of Natural History
Publisher
The Royal Society
Subject
General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Environmental Science,General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine
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