Ancestry populations · Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer
Sub Saharan African
The deep ancestry of Africa south of the Sahara, represented by ancient and present-day genomes from west, east and southern Africa. 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
- Era in the analysis
- Hunter Gatherer and Neolithic Farmer
- Region
- Africa south of the Sahara
- Role in the model
- Source (left) population — a reference qpAdm tests against
Sub-Saharan Africa holds more human genetic diversity than the rest of the world combined, and ancient DNA has begun to reveal how its structure formed. Foragers from Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa show that a broad cline of hunter-gatherer ancestry once ran the length of the continent's eastern side, later largely replaced by the expansion of food producers — pastoralists from the north-east and Bantu-speaking farmers from the west (Skoglund et al. 2017; Lipson et al. 2022). The source used here is a reference for that deep African heritage as a whole rather than for any one region.
This ancestry is the foundation of every population south of the Sahara and a substantial component of the African diaspora in the Americas and Europe. It also appears in smaller measure across North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn, where trans-Saharan and Red Sea contact carried it north over many centuries. In the model it is the most genetically distant of the era's sources from everything Eurasian, which makes even a small share easy to separate from the rest.
In Ancestrify's qpAdm service, Sub Saharan African 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. For genomes from the Mediterranean, the Near East or the Gulf it is the source that captures African-related ancestry that no Eurasian reference can, and its weight is usually well separated from zero when present.
Y haplogroups E1b1a, A and B, and the mtDNA L lineages, are characteristic of populations rich in this ancestry. 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.Represents the deeply divergent ancestral lineages of sub-Saharan Africa, home to the greatest genetic diversity of any global region and the deepest branches of the human phylogenetic tree. Ancient DNA reveals that African forager populations maintained deeply structured ancestry dating to 80,000–20,000 years ago, with at least three highly divergent source populations contributing to modern sub-Saharan genetic variation. Southern African lineages ancestral to the San people represent one of the deepest-branching human lineages, historically spread across a much wider geographic range than today. Despite this deep structure, long-term genetic continuity within regions persisted for millennia, with limited long-range gene flow until Bantu expansions began approximately 3,000–5,000 years ago. Sub-Saharan ancestry serves as the outgroup reference in most Eurasian admixture models.
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 Sub Saharan African 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 Sub Saharan African?
Sub Saharan African 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 Sub Saharan African 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 Sub Saharan African 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 Sub Saharan African?
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 Sub Saharan African where it improves the fit.
Can I model Sub Saharan African 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
Iberomaurusian15000 – 8000 BC
Iranian Neolithic Farmer8000 – 5000 BC
Native American15000 – 1500 BC
Natufian12000 – 8000 BC
North African Farmer5200 – 4000 BC
Northeast Asian6000 – 2000 BC
Western Hunter Gatherer12000 – 6000 BC
Western Steppe Herder5000 – 2800 BC