VIENNA, AUSTRIA—According to a Live Science report, European hunter-gatherers traversed the Mediterranean Sea in primitive boats and visited North Africa much earlier than previously thought. A new study sequenced the DNA from nine individuals who lived in modern-day Algeria and Tunisia between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. The surprising results revealed that some of them may have been descended from Mesolithic Europeans. The genome of one particular man buried at the site of Djebba in Tunisia indicated that at least six percent of his DNA could be traced back to European hunter-gatherers. These results suggest that the individual’s local ancestors mixed with Europeans around 8,500 years ago. This is the first clear evidence that the two geographically separate groups intermingled at that early date. Although no boat remains have been found to date, experts theorize that groups from Sicily may have voyaged across the open sea and reached North Africa using long wooden dugout canoes such as the 7,000-year-old examples that have been found in Lake Bracciano in central Italy. “Several decades ago, some biological anthropologists proposed that European and North African hunter-gatherers had made contact, based on morphological analyses of skeletal traits,” said University of Vienna researcher Ron Pinhasi. “At the time, this theory appeared overly speculative. However, 30 years later, our new genomic data has validated these early hypotheses. This is really exciting.” To read about the heartland for European hunter-gatherers that receded beneath the sea 8,000 years ago, go to "Letter from Doggerland: Mapping a Vanished Landscape."
