Ancient DNA Shows Stone Age Europeans Voyaged by Sea to Africa

Stone Age people might have crossed the Mediterranean on wooden canoes, navigating from island to island by sight.Credit: Sheila Terry/Science Photo Library Thousands of years before Odysseus crossed the ‘wine-dark sea’ in Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, hunter-gatherers might have island-hopped their way to Africa across the Mediterranean. The first genomic study of ancient people from the eastern Maghreb region — present-day Tunisia and northeastern Algeria — shows that Stone Age populations who lived there more than 8,000 years ago were descended, in part, from European hunter-gatherers. The discovery, reported on 12 March in Nature1, is the first direct evidence of trans-Mediterranean sea voyaging during this time, although archaeological finds have hinted at cultural exchange between European and North African hunter-gatherers. Using ancient genomes, researchers have mapped the emergence of agriculture in the Middle East 12,000 years ago and its spread to Europe, but the southe ... Read full article.