Ancient genomes from the period when the Sahara was green and lush with rivers and streams and lots of fauna and flora, in the first half of the Holocene, is interesting. A new study reveals a long isolated northern African lineage – see https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/04/250402122146.htm … Between 14,500 and 5000 years ago, genetic analysis shows that thre was a distinct line of descent from the earlier popualation living there during the Late Glacial Maximum. After 5000 years ago, when the Sahara became drier and drier, the genetics become mixed with new migrants, from all points it would seem. People were on the move in search of a more agreeable climate to raise their families and provide them with food.
Genetic analysis shows humans in North Africa diverged around 50,000 years ago, a Bayesian calculation. Previously it would have concurred with the Laschamp Event around 42,000 years ago. In other words, as Neanderthals died out in Europe and western Asia and were replaced by modern humans, a similar process was occurring in northern Africa. These people survived deep into the Holocene and did not receive the waves of migration that affected lands north of the Mediterranean. With a caveat from other articles – that farmers did colonise parts of North Africa within reach of the Mediterranean.
The lineage therefore thrived, or was in existence, all the way through the Late Glacial Maximum period, when NW Europe was distinctly inhospitable. When the ice receded from northern Europe the newly thawed zone was quickly populated by hunter gatherers from southern Europe, and further afield. Central Asia, for example. In what is now one of the driest parts of the Sahara, researchers made use of evidence from a rock shelter and shows that people here remained – with no need for migration outwards as the early Holocene in the Sahara was suitable as a place to live and thrive. Genetics show they survived the Ice Age in an unadmixed form – and these people remain as a genetic component of the North African population, having mixed with migrants from the east. It also seems as if there was no admixture with peoples south of the Sahara. How that squares with images of sub Saharan people recorded by later people is an unknown. Pastoralism became a common way of life as the Sahara became drier – after 8000 years ago. This, it is suggested, occurred via cultural exchange rather than a large scale migration. No doubt others might disagree as the study focussed on the central Sahara. See https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08793-7 …