Biomolecular insights into North African-related ancestry, mobility and diet in eleventh-century Al-Andalus

Marina Silva,Alexandra Rosa,Bobby Yau,António Brehm,Alberto Gómez-Carballa,Antònia Flaquer,M George B Foody,Amparo Barrachina,D.w Clarke ,Alessandro Fichera,Antonio Salas,Matthew Von Tersch,Francesca Gandini,Ceiridwen J Edwards,Pedro Soares ,Maria Pala,Ali M Madour ,J M A B Guimarães ,Michelle Alexander,Alessandro Achilli,Peter Ditchfield ,Krista Mcgrath,Teresa Rito,Pierre Justeau,Vicente Palomar,Katharina Dulias,Anna Olivieri,Antonio Torroni,Jarosław Bryk ,Rui Martiniano,Tarek Shoeib,Gonzalo Oteo–García ,Martin B Richards

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-95996-3

Abstract

Historical records document medieval immigration from North Africa to Iberia to create Islamic al-Andalus. Here, we present a low-coverage genome of an eleventh century CE man buried in an Islamic necropolis in Segorbe, near Valencia, Spain. Uniparental lineages indicate North African ancestry, but at the autosomal level he displays a mosaic of North African and European-like ancestries, distinct from any present-day population. Altogether, the genome-wide evidence, stable isotope results and the age of the burial indicate that his ancestry was ultimately a result of admixture between recently arrived Amazigh people (Berbers) and the population inhabiting the Peninsula prior to the Islamic conquest. We detect differences between our sample and a previously published group of contemporary individuals from Valencia, exemplifying how detailed, small-scale aDNA studies can illuminate fine-grained regional and temporal differences. His genome demonstrates how ancient DNA studies can capture portraits of past genetic variation that have been erased by later demographic shifts—in this case, most likely the seventeenth century CE expulsion of formerly Islamic communities as tolerance dissipated following the Reconquista by the Catholic kingdoms of the north.

Highlights

We confirmed that the individual was genetically male (RY > 0.077; Supplementary Fig. S3), and both his uniparental markers point towards North African origins (Supplementary Table S2)
U6 lineages have been retrieved from sixteenth century CE Islamic burials in Granada (Andalusia)[6], to our knowledge, UE2298/MS060 is the earliest documented finding of a U6 lineage in Iberia
Populations, with a peak of 3.6% in the south of Spain (Fig. 1b). This pattern contrasts with most mitochondrial lineages today in Iberia, a peak of frequency in the south of the Peninsula is observed for typically sub-Saharan African L lineages (Supplementary Fig. S5; Supplementary Table S5)

Summary

Introduction

Iberia intensified contacts with North Africa through Phoenician traders, Carthaginians and Roman conquerors[16], North-African genetic contribution seems to have been restricted to southern populations until the eight century C E6 It is only with the Islamic conquest of Iberia in 711 CE that records start pointing towards a substantial influx of people from North Africa, involving the culturally and genetically differentiated Arab and Amazigh (Berber) p eoples[17,18]. Berbers had converted to Islam as a result of the Arab conquest of North Africa in the preceding century and embarked in a slow and complex process of Arabisation that lasted centuries They were far from culturally homogeneous; a deep division existed between nomadic and sedentary Berber groups, and it was the latter who first settled in the rural areas of Spain[18]. Berber numbers in Iberia were likely larger than those of the Arabs, they initially wielded no significant political power, but this changed during the eleventh–thirteenth centuries CE with the establishment of the Almoravid and Almohad Berber e mpires[18]

Methods

Results

Conclusion