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Two 7,000-year-old mummies of an unknown human group discovered in the Sahara

2026-02-04 16:56:00, Kuriozitete CNA

Two 7,000-year-old mummies of an unknown human group discovered in the Sahara

A new genetic study has revealed that two 7,000-year-old mummies, found in the Takarkori rock formation in the Sahara Desert, belong to an unknown branch of the human family.

The Sahara, today one of the driest areas in the world, was around 14,800 to 5,500 years ago an area of ??lakes, meadows and savannah, suitable for agriculture and livestock.

The study, led by archaeogeneticist Nada Salem from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, analyzed the DNA of two mummies that preserved fragmented genetic remains.

Both individuals are women and belong to a group that researchers call "ghost populations," groups that have only been perceived by genetic traces in modern humans, but no physical remains have been previously found.

The genetic origins of these people suggest an unknown lineage that split from sub-Saharan African communities around 50,000 years ago, around the time modern humans began to spread outside of Africa.

The study, published in the journal Nature, shows that the Takarkori population is closely related to 15,000-year-old hunter-gatherers from the Taforalt cave in Morocco, indicating minimal genetic interactions with sub-Saharan communities at the time.

According to researchers, it is likely that more mummies and archaeological finds are still under the sands of the Sahara, waiting to reveal the history of life there, before the desert changed into what it is today. /CNA





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