2018 has been a big year in genetics. One of the more interesting findings that has been slowly emerging in recent years is, just as Eurasians tend to have genetic contributions from extinct Neanderthals and Denisovans, sub-Saharan Africans seem to have their own admixture from a different archaic population.

Models of archaic admixture and recent history from two-locus statistics Aaron P. Ragsdale and Simon Gravel

Department of Human Genetics, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

December 6, 2018 Abstract

… we show that human evolutionary models that include archaic admixture in Africa, Asia, and Europe provide a much better description of patterns of genetic diversity across the human genome. We estimate that individuals in two African populations have 6 − 8% ancestry through admixture from an unidentified archaic population that diverged from the ancestors of modern humans 500 thousand years ago.

The two present day African populations studied are Yorubans in Nigerian and the Luhya, a Bantu tribe in Kenya. I don’t believe there is any name yet for the putative “ghost” population, nor any recognized fossils.

An archaic population is an extinct one, a ghost population is one for which we only have statistical evidence. This ancient African population was presumably archaic and ghost.

Back in April in reviewing David Reich’s book, I suggested that