Luxmanda

Admixture clustering analysis of a 3,100-year-old female infant skeleton exhumed at Luxmanda found that the individual carried approximately 38±1% of her ancestry related to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic culture of the Levant. The African ancestry of Luxmanda was fitted as being most closely related to a hunter-gatherer population that inhabited Ethiopia ca. 4,500 BP (under a two-population admixture scenario, with inferred ancestry proportions of 62.2–62.8% for the hunter-gather component and 37.2–37.8% for the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B component). When using a three-population admixture scenario, the African part also showed contributions from a population related to the Dinka (with then an inferred ancestry proportion of 39% ± 1% for Levantine-related ancestry). Furthermore, haplogroup analysis indicated that the Luxmanda specimen bore the haplogroup L2a1 (mtDNA). Scientists had previously dated the arrival of Western Eurasian-related ancestry in eastern Africa, which is now pervasive in the region, to around 3000 BP on average. The new genetic data suggest that the makers of the Savanna Pastoral Neolithic were responsible for spreading ancient Levant-related ancestry in the lacustrine region, where they had established new settlements. The Luxmanda individual's population also likely introduced herding to southern Africa, since a 1,200 year old pastoralist individual from the Western Cape was found to bear affinities with the Luxmanda sample. ==References==