Who were the Sub Saharan African (300 BC – 400 AD)?

Sub Saharan African is one of the 27 curated source populations in the Classical Antiquity 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 Classical Antiquity 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 Classical Antiquity era. Those are G25 fits, not formal qpAdm models — the paid analysis is the one with a p-value.

Sub Saharan African — ancient DNA source population (qpAdm)

Who they were

Artistic interpretation of the Sub Saharan African (AI-generated artwork, not documentary evidence)

Period: 300 BC – 400 AD
Era in the analysis: Classical Antiquity
Region: Africa south of the Sahara
Role in the model: Source (left) population — a reference qpAdm tests against

The centuries around the turn of the era were transformative south of the Sahara: Bantu-speaking farmers and iron-workers were spreading from West-Central Africa across the continent's eastern and southern half, pastoralists had reached the Rift Valley, and the Garamantes of the Fezzan, the kingdoms of Nubia and Aksum and the Indian Ocean ports were linking Africa to Rome, Arabia and India. Ancient genomes trace the farmer expansion replacing or absorbing the older hunter-gatherer populations of the east and south (Skoglund et al. 2017; Lipson et al. 2022). This source represents that Iron Age African heritage as a reference for the Classical world's southern contacts.

This ancestry is the foundation of every population south of the Sahara today and of the African diaspora, and in the Classical Antiquity era it is the source that captures the African contribution that trans-Saharan trade, the Nile corridor and the Red Sea carried into North Africa, Egypt, Arabia and, occasionally, Rome itself. In the model it is the most genetically distant source from everything Mediterranean, so even a small share separates cleanly.

In Ancestrify's qpAdm service, Sub Saharan African is a source in the "Classical Antiquity" 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 North Africa, the Gulf and the Horn it is the source that captures the African-related component, and its Z-score usually shows a genuine weight well separated from zero.

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 report
Represents the Nile Valley populations of the Kingdom of Kush during its Meroitic period (~300 BCE–350 CE), when the royal court sat at Meroë and the kingdom flourished as an independent power on the middle Nile, south of Roman Egypt. Kushite ancestry lies at the meeting point of North-East African and sub-Saharan lineages. Ancient DNA from the middle Nile remains sparse, but the available evidence points to long-standing continuity with earlier Nile Valley populations, layered with gene flow from the Egyptian north and from Sahelian and eastern African groups to the south and east. Meroë controlled large-scale iron production and long-distance trade in gold, ivory and cotton, and supported a literate court writing in its own Meroitic script. Its steep brick pyramids at Meroë, Nuri and El-Kurru mark centuries of royal burial. The kingdom declined in the fourth century CE and was succeeded by the Christian Nubian kingdoms of Nobatia, Makuria and Alodia, whose descendants remain in the modern Nile Valley.

Artwork is an AI-generated artistic interpretation informed by the archaeological record — not documentary evidence.

Where this population sits in the model

The Ancestrify qpAdm analysis models your genome once per era. The Classical Antiquity era has 27 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 Classical Antiquity 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 (300 BC – 400 AD)?
Sub Saharan African is one of the 27 curated source populations in the Classical Antiquity 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 Classical Antiquity 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 Classical Antiquity era. Those are G25 fits, not formal qpAdm models — the paid analysis is the one with a p-value.