Taforalt Caves
The Taforalt Caves (or Grotte des Pigeons) are cave formations located in the northern Oujda region of Morocco. They contain important prehistoric archaeological remains associated with the Epipaleolithic Iberomaurusian culture.
Site description
Dating to around 20,000 years BC, the caves located near Taforalt house the remains of numerous skeletons of Oranian and perhaps older origins.[1] The remains are distributed throughout a deep and highly stratified cave floor, which has yielded much ash and charcoal fragments along with human and animal bones and plant material.
World Heritage Status
This site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on July 1, 1995 in the Cultural category.[1]
Ancient DNA
In 2013, Iberomaurusian skeletons from Taforalt and the prehistoric site of Afalou were analyzed for ancient DNA. All of the specimens belonged to maternal clades associated with either North Africa or the northern and southern Mediterranean littoral, indicating gene flow between these areas since the Epipaleolithic.[2] The ancient Taforalt individuals carried the mtDNA haplogroups U6, H, JT and V, which points to population continuity in the region dating from the Iberomaurusian period.[3]
Notes
- 1 2 Grotte de Taforalt - UNESCO World Heritage Centre
- ↑ Kefi R, Bouzaid E, Stevanovitch A, Beraud-Colomb E. "MITOCHONDRIAL DNA AND PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS OF PREHISTORIC NORTH AFRICAN POPULATIONS" (PDF). ISABS. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
- ↑ Bernard Secher, Rosa Fregel, José M Larruga, Vicente M Cabrera, Phillip Endicott, José J Pestano and Ana M González. "The history of the North African mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U6 gene flow into the African, Eurasian and American continents". BMC Evolutionary Biology. Retrieved 11 February 2016.
References
Grotte de Taforalt - UNESCO World Heritage Centre Accessed 2009-03-02.
External links
Coordinates: 34°48′38″N 2°24′30″W / 34.81056°N 2.40833°W