This work results from a long-term collaboration of researchers from international institutions and support by the local authorities.

Thanks so much to all co-authors, including @isabellecrevecoeur.bsky.social, @clement-zanolli.bsky.social, @fredericsantos.bsky.social !

This research was funded by @univbordeaux.bsky.social, @cnrs.fr, @cnrsecologie.bsky.social, @agencerecherche.bsky.social, @unikarlova.cuni.cz, Czech Science fondation, @ncn.gov.pl

@pacea.bsky.social

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Want to read more about these exciting new data? Read the full paper here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 📃

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We also discovered evidence of mobility along the Wadi Howar river during the Neolithic period: some individuals from the desert show a "Nilotic-like" signal, while individuals from the Southern Dongola Reach (along the Nile) show a forager/desert-like ancestry - suggesting regional exchanges.🚶‍♂️🚶‍♀️
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Interestingly, while the new food-producing population replaced the previous hunter-gatherers along the Nile, we identified a forager-related population in the Eastern Sahara.

This suggests that Neolithic newcomers did not extend further into the desert margins and settled along the Nile only.
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We found significant morphological differences between the last foragers and first food-producers in the region.
Considering the extremely high phylogenetic signal of the EDJ, this provides clear evidence of biological discontinuity and migration towards the valley at the Neolithic transition 🔄
3/7

We analyzed the enamel-dentine junction (EDJ) -a highly reliable proxy for population affinities- of 88 individuals from Late Pleistocene to mid-Holocene sites in Sudan and Southern Egypt. We focused on the first and second upper molars of these individuals. 🦷

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