John and Kathy Arthur of USF were part of a team of 44 interdisciplinary researchers that discovered DNA from a 4,500-year-old skeleton in the Mota Cave in Ethiopia. The findings will provide clues on how early humans lived, traveled, and interacted with one another, with the analysis providing an unprecedented dataset of DNA from ancient African foragers.
“This pioneering research presents a new perspective on the ancient history of sub-Saharan Africa, allowing us to gain a more complete understanding of human interaction during this time,” said Arthur. The ancient DNA allowed researchers to identify a demographic shift where people stopped migrating so much, possibly due to the formation of social networks.
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