Sunday, October 8, 2023

Scientists rediscover lost human groups

Catherine Shuttleworth, Indy 100 via MSN.com, 9/27/23; Sheldon S., CC Liu, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Members of the Himba community, which is also native to the Namib desert Members of the Himba community, which is also native to the Namib desert (iStock)
.
Scientists rediscover human groups that were thought to have died out decades ago
OMG, these tribal Africans are so beautiful!
A team of researchers has rediscovered a human population that was thought to have been lost decades ago.

When a number of languages died out in southern Africa's Namib Desert, anthropologists feared that the populations that spoke them had gone, too. However, experts have now discovered that the genetic identity of these groups may have been maintained, even without their native tongue.

"We were able to locate groups which were once thought to have disappeared more than 50 years ago," Dr. Jorge Rocha of the University of Porto said in a statement. One of these groups is the Kwepe, who used to speak Kwadi.

The disappearance of the language was thought to mark the end of their separation from neighboring populations. Dr. Ann-Maria Fehn of the Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos said:

"Kwadi was a click language that shared a common ancestor with the Khoe languages spoken by foragers and herders across Southern Africa."

The team managed to find the descendants of those who spoke Kwadi and discovered that they had retained their genetic distinctiveness that traces back to a time before Bantu-speaking farmers moved into the area. More: Scientists rediscover human groups that were thought to have died out decades ago











at

No comments:

Post a Comment