UCT researchers reassemble the oldest human DNA found in SA
Researchers from the UCT have uncovered SA’s oldest known human DNA from people who lived in a rock shelter. Here’s more…
Oldest known human DNA decoded near George
Researchers from the University of Cape Town (UCT) have reassembled SA’s oldest known human DNA from two individuals who lived around 10 000 years ago in South Africa.
As reported by Cape Town Etc, researchers from UCT and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig recently decoded the oldest human DNA yet discovered in South Africa, from a man and a woman who lived in a rock shelter near George.
According to Victoria Gibbon, a professor of biological anthropology at the University of Cape Town, the DNA sequences were from the remains of two people who once lived near George, around 370 kilometres east of Cape Town.
They were one of 13 sequences recreated from humans whose remains were discovered in the Oakhurst rock shelter and lived between 1 300 and 10 000 years ago. Before these discovery, the oldest human DNA reconstructed from the region dated back around 2 000 years.
Oakhurst rockshelter, 7 km from the coast, was excavated in the first half of the twentieth century and is especially noteworthy for its substantial accumulation of deposit that spans 12 000 years.
The full research and findings were published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution and can be read here.