Kehf el Baroud, sometimes mistakenly spelled Kelif el Boroud, is an archaeological site in

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

. It is located to the south of

Rabat Rabat (, also , ; ar, الرِّبَاط, er-Ribât; ber, ⵕⵕⴱⴰⵟ, ṛṛbaṭ) is the capital city of Morocco and the country's seventh largest city with an urban population of approximately 580,000 (2014) and a metropolitan populatio ...

, near Dar es Soltan.

Genetics

examined the remains of 8 individuals buried at Kelif el Boroud c. 3780-3650 BC during the Neolithic. The 1 sample of

Y-DNA The Y chromosome is one of two sex chromosomes (allosomes) in therian mammals, including humans, and many other animals. The other is the X chromosome. Y is normally the sex-determining chromosome in many species, since it is the presence or abse ...

extracted belonged to the paternal haplogroup T-M184, while the 6 samples of

mtDNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial DNA ...

extracted belonged to the maternal haplogroups X2b (two samples), K1a1b1 (two samples), K1a4a1 and T2b3. The examined individuals were found to share genetic affinities with individuals buried at both the Early Neolithic sites of

Ifri N'Amr Ou Moussa Ifri n'Amr Ou Moussa is an archaeological site discovered in 2005, located in the rural commune of Aït Siberne, Khémisset Province, in Western Morocco. This site has revealed burials associated with both Moroccan Early Neolithic and Bell Beaker ...

in Morocco and the Early Neolithic Cave of El Toro in Spain. They were modelled as being of about 50% Early European Farmer (EEF) ancestry and 50% local North African ancestry, suggesting substantial migration from Iberia into North Africa during the Neolithic. They had a lower amount of

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

n admixture than earlier North Africans buried at Ifri N'Amr Ou Moussa. They also carried alleles associated with

light skin Light skin is a human skin color that has a base level of eumelanin pigmentation that has adapted to environments of low UV radiation. Light skin is most commonly found amongst the native populations of Europe and East Asia as measured through ...

and light

eye color Eye color is a polygenic phenotypic character determined by two distinct factors: the pigmentation of the eye's iris and the frequency-dependence of the scattering of light by the turbid medium in the stroma of the iris. In humans, the ...

. They were found to be closely related to the

Guanches The Guanches were the indigenous inhabitants of the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean some west of Africa. It is believed that they may have arrived on the archipelago some time in the first millennium BCE. The Guanches were the only nativ ...

of the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, :es:Canarias, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to ...

References

Sources

* Archaeological sites in Morocco 4th-millennium BC establishments {{Morocco-geo-stub

Genetics

See also

References

Sources