Around 7,000 years ago, the Sahara was not a desert. Lakes, rivers and savannas covered large parts of North Africa, supporting communities of hunters and cattle herders.

A 2025 Nature study recovered genome-wide DNA from two naturally mummified women buried at Takarkori in southwestern Libya. Their ancestry was unlike anything previously described: a genetic model estimated that about 93% came from a deeply divergent, previously unknown North African lineage, with only ~7% from an ancient Levantine-related source.

The Takarkori women were most closely related to ancient North Africans from Morocco, including 15,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from Taforalt. Using Takarkori as a better reference, the study revised Taforalt’s ancestry to about 60.8% Natufian-related and 39.2% Takarkori-like deep North African ancestry.

Despite the Sahara being green and crossed by lakes and waterways, the researchers found no evidence for substantial south-to-north genetic exchange from sampled sub-Saharan African populations during the African Humid Period.

Takarkori’s people were cattle herders, yet they carried only marginal Levantine-related admixture. This suggests pastoralism spread through the Central Sahara mainly by cultural adoption rather than large-scale population replacement.

They also carried only about 0.15% detectable Neanderthal ancestry, roughly ten times less than most non-African populations, consistent with a deeply rooted African lineage that received only limited Eurasian-related gene flow.

📚 Source: Salem et al. (2025), Nature
Ancient DNA from the Green Sahara reveals ancestral North African lineage

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