Survivors Of The Last Ice Age: DNA Reveals Humans Came To Southern Arabia 10,000 Years Earlier Than Previously Thought

MessageToEagle.com – During the last Ice Age that lasted until about 11,700 years ago glaciers covered huge parts of the Earth. Most of our planet was uninhabitable, but there were oases where people 20,000 years ago were able to cluster and survive. One such place has been identified in what is now Southern Arabia.

Up to now, it has been assumed people did not settle in large numbers in Arabia until the development of agriculture, around 10-11,000 years ago.

However, a recent DNA analysis conducted by University of Huddersfield’s Archaeogenetics Research Group in UK reveals humans have dwelt in this territory for far longer than previously thought. The new genetic data and analysis bolsters a theory that has long been held by archaeologists, although they had little evidence to support it until now.

Once the Ice Age receded, with the onset of the Late Glacial period about 15,000 years ago, the people of this refugium then dispersed and populated Arabia and the Horn of Africa, and might also have migrated further afield.

The new discoveries about an Ice Age refugium in Arabia and the subsequent outward migration are based on a study of a rare mitochondrial DNA lineage named R0a, which, uniquely, is most frequent in Arabia and the Horn of Africa.

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According to Dr Francesca Gandini, this lineage is more ancient than previously thought and that it has a deeper presence in Arabia than was earlier believed. This makes the case for at least one glacial refugium during the Pleistocene period, which spanned the Ice Age.

Dr. Gandini and her co-researchers found also evidence or the movement of people in the R0a haplogroup through the Middle East and into Europe and there might also have been a trading network and a “gene flow” from Arabia into the territories that are now Iran, Pakistan and India.

The DNA analysis offers compelling evidence humans came to Southern Arabia 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.

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