Khoisan hunter-gatherers have been the largest population throughout most of modern-human demographic history
Item
Title
Khoisan hunter-gatherers have been the largest
population throughout most of modern-human
demographic history
population throughout most of modern-human
demographic history
author
Kim, Hie Lim
Ratan, Aakrosh
Perry, George H.
Montenegro, Alvaro
Miller, Webb
Schuster, Stephan C.
Is Part Of
Nature Communications 5, Article number: 5692
citation
Kim, H., Ratan, A., Perry, G. et al. Khoisan hunter-gatherers have been the largest population throughout most of modern-human demographic history. Nat Commun 5, 5692 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms6692
Identifier
LIT210
Description
The Khoisan people from Southern Africa maintained ancient lifestyles as hunter-gatherers or pastoralists up to modern times, though little else is known about their early history. Here we infer early demographic histories of modern humans using whole-genome sequences of five Khoisan individuals and one Bantu speaker. Comparison with a 420 K SNP data set from worldwide individuals demonstrates that two of the Khoisan genomes from the Ju/’hoansi population contain exclusive Khoisan ancestry. Coalescent analysis shows that the Khoisan and their ancestors have been the largest populations since their split with the non-Khoisan population ~100–150 kyr ago. In contrast, the ancestors of the non-Khoisan groups, including Bantu-speakers and non-Africans, experienced population declines after the split and lost more than half of their genetic diversity. Paleoclimate records indicate that the precipitation in southern Africa increased ~80–100 kyr ago while west-central Africa became drier. We hypothesize that these climate differences might be related to the divergent-ancient histories among human populations.
Date Issued
2014
Subject
Human genetics-Africa
!Kung (African people)-Genetic aspects
Khoisan (African people)-Genetic aspects
Type
Article
Language
English
topic
Human Health and Wellbeing
