Archaeologists found 15 skeletons in a rock shelter in southwest Libya, including two naturally mummified women who died roughly 7,000 years ago. Archaeological Mission in the Sahara, Sapienza University of Rome
Smithsonian Magazine has a story about two mysterious skeletons found in Libya. As recent as 5,000 year ago, the area of the Sahara desert was a lush and green landscape with lakes and rivers. The land sustained a diverse variety of animals. It shouldn't be surprising that humans were also lived there. Recently, 15 human skeletons, including 2 mummified women, were found in a rock shelter in southwesterm Libya. According to a study published in the journal Nature, they were largely genetically distinct.
The individuals who lived in the green Sahara showed “no significant genetic influence from sub-Saharan populations to the south or Near Eastern and prehistoric European groups to the north,” says study co-author Johannes Krause, a geneticist at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, to Reuters’ Will Dunham.
“This suggests they remained genetically isolated despite practicing animal husbandry—a cultural innovation that originated outside Africa," Krause adds.
That finding was unexpected, as researchers had long theorized the green Sahara was a human migration corridor between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. “It’s surprising,” says Eugenia D’Atanasio, a geneticist at the Sapienza University of Rome who was not involved with the research, to Science’s Andrew Curry. “I would have expected more gene flow across the green Sahara.”
