Ancient West African Foragers in the Context of African Population History

Abstract

We generated genome-wide DNA data from four children buried roughly 8000 and 3000 years ago at Shum Laka (Cameroon), one of the earliest archaeological sites within the probable homeland of Bantu languages. One individual carried the deeply divergent Y chromosome haplogroup A00, which is found today almost exclusively in the same region. However, all four individuals’ genome-wide ancestry profiles are most similar to West-Central African hunter-gatherers, implying that present-day populations in western Cameroon, as well as Bantu speakers across the continent, are not descended substantially from the population represented by these four people. We infer an Africa-wide phylogeny that features widespread admixture and three prominent radiations, including one giving rise to at least four major lineages deep in the history of modern humans.