Khoisan hunter-gatherers have been the largest population throughout most of modern-human demographic history

Hie Lim Kim (), Aakrosh Ratan, George H. Perry, Alvaro Montenegro, Webb Miller and Stephan C. Schuster ()
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Hie Lim Kim: Center for Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics, Pennsylvania State University, 310 Wartik Lab, University Park
Aakrosh Ratan: Center for Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics, Pennsylvania State University, 310 Wartik Lab, University Park
George H. Perry: Pennsylvania State University, 513 Carpenter Building, University Park
Alvaro Montenegro: Ohio State University, 154 North Oval Mall
Webb Miller: Center for Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics, Pennsylvania State University, 310 Wartik Lab, University Park
Stephan C. Schuster: Center for Comparative Genomics and Bioinformatics, Pennsylvania State University, 310 Wartik Lab, University Park

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract The Khoisan people from Southern Africa maintained ancient lifestyles as hunter-gatherers or pastoralists up to modern times, though little else is known about their early history. Here we infer early demographic histories of modern humans using whole-genome sequences of five Khoisan individuals and one Bantu speaker. Comparison with a 420 K SNP data set from worldwide individuals demonstrates that two of the Khoisan genomes from the Ju/’hoansi population contain exclusive Khoisan ancestry. Coalescent analysis shows that the Khoisan and their ancestors have been the largest populations since their split with the non-Khoisan population ~100–150 kyr ago. In contrast, the ancestors of the non-Khoisan groups, including Bantu-speakers and non-Africans, experienced population declines after the split and lost more than half of their genetic diversity. Paleoclimate records indicate that the precipitation in southern Africa increased ~80–100 kyr ago while west-central Africa became drier. We hypothesize that these climate differences might be related to the divergent-ancient histories among human populations.

Date: 2014
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6692

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