Mushabian culture


The Mushabian culture is an archaeological culture suggested to have originated among the Iberomaurusians in North Africa, though once thought to have originated in the Levant.

Archaeologists' opinions

According to Ofer Bar-Yosef :
"A contemporary desertic entity was labeled "Mushabian," and was considered to be, on the basis of the technotypological features of its lithics, of North African origin. The fieldwork done in recent years in northern Sinai and the Negev has shown that the forms of the Mushabian microliths and the intensive use of the microburin technique was a trait foreign to previous Levantine industries, but instead is closer to the Iberomaurusian."
According to Thomas Levy:
"The Mushabian is commonly considered to have originated in North Africa, largely on the basis of habitual of the microburin technique and general morphological similarities with some assemblages in Nubia, suggesting it could represent an arid-land adaptation. Some researchers have noted stylistic continuities between the Mushabian and the Ibero-Maurusian of North Africa, suggesting the Mushabian may represent a migration of African groups into the southern Levant."
According to Deborah Olszewski:
According to Nigel Goring-Morris:

Early migrations

The migration of farmers from the Middle East into Europe is believed to have significantly influenced the genetic profile of contemporary Europeans. The Natufian culture which existed about 12,000 years ago in the Levant, has been the subject of various archeological investigations as the Natufian culture is generally believed to be the source of the European Neolithic.
The Mediterranean Sea and the Sahara Desert were formidable barriers to gene flow between Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. But Europe was periodically accessible to Africans due to fluctuations in the size and climate of the Sahara. At the Strait of Gibraltar, Africa and Europe are separated by only 15 km of water. At the Suez, Eurasia is connected to Africa forming a single land mass. The Nile river valley, which runs from East Africa to the Mediterranean Sea served as a bidirectional corridor in the Sahara desert, that frequently connected people from Sub-Saharan Africa with the peoples of Eurasia.

Mushabian-Kebaran merge

According to Bar-Yosef the Natufian culture emerged from the mixing of the Geometric Kebaran and the Mushabian. Modern analyses comparing 24 craniofacial measurements reveal a predominantly cosmopolitan population within the pre-Neolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age Fertile Crescent, supporting the view that a diverse population of peoples occupied this region during these time periods. In particular, evidence demonstrates the presence of North European, Central European, Saharan and Sub-Saharan African presence within the region, especially among the Epipalaeolithic Natufians of Palestine. These studies further argue that over time the Sub-Saharan influences would have been "diluted" out of the genetic picture due to interbreeding between Neolithic migrants from the Near East and Western Hunter Gatherer hunter-gatherers whom they came in contact with. However, a recent study showed that Natufians had no Sub-Saharan admixture.
Ricaut et al. associate the Sub-Saharan influences detected in the Natufian samples with the migration of E1b1b lineages from North Africa to the Levant and then into Europe. Entering the late mesolithic Natufian culture, the E1b1b1a2 sub-clade has been associated with the spread of farming from the Middle East into Europe either during or just before the Neolithic transition. E1b1b1 lineages are found throughout Europe but are distributed along a South-to-North cline, with an E1b1b1a mode in the Balkans.
Also,
Loosdrecht et al. consider that the Natufians arose from a population without SSA influences either in Morocco, Libya, or the Levant.