Southern Iberia

A new Surprising Result is out, about the Moorish south of Spain and Portugal. The greater Algarve was Mousterian culture (Neander) until it went Aurignacian (later Magdalenian, finally WHG). Aurignacian is elsewhere deemed later.

We do (now) have a constraint (sort of), in the 70-40kBC southern backmigration, which carried no Neander in the DNA. Southern Iberia lies in Western Europe's way. This hints that no Basal Eurasians - the foothold of African man in Eurasia - could venture past the Pyrenees. So Iberia remained stoutly Neander as Africans colonised other parts of Eurasia. Well into the 40s kBC, all agree.

In southern Iberia, we now are told, the switch was 42 kBC. This "surprised" the team because everyone (who looked here) thought the Neanders lasted longer in Iberia, too.

I'll admit, I hadn't thought to think about Southern Iberia. If I had, I'd have assumed that it's part of the wider Maghreb. North Africa did host Neanders in it. But not, I think, since the Eemian.

I would not, then, expect a Neander presence in southern Iberia to last. The northern Pyrenees, which today hosts the Euskara, would be my choice for a refugium of relict populations. It's that anyone ever assumed that Neanders could hold the south that surprises me.

If It Happens Now, It Happened Then - again. People only get surprised when they get their data wrong.

As a side effect, we do get a constraint on the backmigrational route: by way of the King's Road to Egypt, and of Yemen. The Iberian route was closed.