Ancestry populations · Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer
Iberomaurusian
Late Pleistocene foragers of the Maghreb coast, whose genomes from Taforalt reveal a deep North African lineage with Near Eastern and sub-Saharan connections. One of the 13 curated source populations in the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era of the Ancestrify qpAdm ancient-DNA analysis.
Who they were
- Period
- 15000 – 8000 BC
- Era in the analysis
- Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer
- Region
- Maghreb, north-west Africa
- Role in the model
- Source (left) population — a reference qpAdm tests against
The Iberomaurusians were the stone-tool makers of the Maghreb coast in the final millennia of the Pleistocene, known above all from the cemetery at Taforalt (Grotte des Pigeons) in eastern Morocco. Their genomes revealed a population unlike any sampled before: roughly two thirds of their ancestry related to the Epipalaeolithic Natufians of the Levant, with the remainder from a sub-Saharan lineage that has no close match among present-day Africans (van de Loosdrecht et al. 2018). They show no trace of the European hunter-gatherer ancestry once proposed on the basis of stone-tool similarities across the Strait of Gibraltar.
This ancestry did not vanish with the arrival of farming: Neolithic individuals from Morocco carry it in large measure, and it survives as the deep indigenous layer beneath later Near Eastern, European and sub-Saharan contributions in present-day Berber and North African populations (Fregel et al. 2018). In the model it is the western North African pole, related to but clearly distinct from the Natufian and from the Neolithic North African farmer sources that partly descend from it.
In Ancestrify's qpAdm service, Iberomaurusian is a source in the "Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer" era. The report shows its weight with a standard error and a Z-score, so you can see not only how much of the model it carries but how confidently that share is separated from zero, and a model that cannot support it is rejected rather than published. Its share tends to be reported alongside the Natufian and North African Farmer sources, and the standard errors show how far the model could separate the three overlapping North African signals.
Y haplogroup E-M78 and mtDNA U6 and M1 are reported at Taforalt, lineages that remain characteristic of North Africa today. A haplogroup alone is never evidence of a share.
In your reportArtwork is an AI-generated artistic interpretation informed by the archaeological record — not documentary evidence.The Epipalaeolithic foragers of the Maghreb (c. 15,000–8,000 BCE), known from the Grotte des Pigeons at Taforalt in eastern Morocco — the earliest North-African genomes yet sequenced. They combine a deep Sub-Saharan-related ancestry with a Near-Eastern-related component akin to the Natufians, and are the indigenous North-African substrate that later Neolithic farmers and present-day Maghrebis still carry.
Where this population sits in the model
The Ancestrify qpAdm analysis models your genome once per era. The Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era has 13 curated source populations, and Iberomaurusian is one of them: every candidate model for that era is a combination of these sources, tested against a fixed set of outgroup populations, and only a model that passes the statistical fit check is published — with a p-value, and a standard error on every proportion.
A reference, not a verdict: every population on this page is a source the model tests your genome against — a well-sampled point in ancient genetic space that a mixture of ancestries can be expressed in terms of. A weight on it means your genome is well described as partly resembling those people; it is never a statement that they, specifically, were your ancestors, and a population that fits well is not the only one that could.
Read how the method works on the qpAdm analysis page, or the definitions in the glossary.
Model it yourself for free
The Ancestrify Lab runs in your browser, with no account. Paste a Global25 row into an admixture calculator that covers the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era, rank the closest ancient populations in the distance tool, or run f4, qpWave and qpAdm on the public panel in the AdmixTools 2 workbench. These are Global25 fits and exploratory statistics, not the formal qpAdm model of the paid analysis.
Questions
Who were the Iberomaurusian (15000 – 8000 BC)?
Iberomaurusian is one of the 13 curated source populations in the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era of the Ancestrify qpAdm analysis: a group of published ancient genomes from one archaeological context, pooled as a single reference the model can test your genome against.
Does Iberomaurusian in my result mean they were my ancestors?
No. A source population is a reference the model tests against, never a statement about who your ancestors were. A coefficient on this source means the ancestry those burials represent helps explain your genome to within statistical noise — similar ancestry composition, not descent from those individuals. Ancestrify never claims a population is your ancestor.
What does a Iberomaurusian percentage in a qpAdm model mean?
qpAdm estimates the mixture proportions that best explain your genome as a combination of the chosen sources, given a fixed set of outgroup (right) populations, and reports a p-value for whether the model is statistically acceptable together with a standard error for every proportion. The percentage is that estimated share, with its uncertainty published beside it.
How do I get a qpAdm model that uses Iberomaurusian?
Order the Ancestrify qpAdm analysis (€29.99, one-time) and upload the raw file you already have from a consumer test. Your genome is merged into the AADR reference panel and modelled across both eras; each era's model is built from that era's source populations, so a model for the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era draws on Iberomaurusian where it improves the fit.
Can I model Iberomaurusian ancestry for free first?
Yes. The Ancestrify Lab runs Global25 admixture calculators, a nearest-populations distance tool and an AdmixTools 2 workbench in your browser with no account, and several calculators cover the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era. Those are G25 fits, not formal qpAdm models — the paid analysis is the one with a p-value.
More populations from the Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer era
Browse the full directory of source populations, or continue with another population from the same era:
Anatolian Neolithic Farmer8500 – 6000 BC
Ancestral South Indian10000 – 2000 BC
Caucasian Hunter Gatherer13000 – 7000 BC
Eastern Hunter Gatherer12000 – 5000 BC
Iranian Neolithic Farmer8000 – 5000 BC
Native American15000 – 1500 BC
Natufian12000 – 8000 BC
North African Farmer5200 – 4000 BC
Northeast Asian6000 – 2000 BC
Sub Saharan African
Western Hunter Gatherer12000 – 6000 BC
Western Steppe Herder5000 – 2800 BC