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The Iberomaurusian is a backed bladelet lithic industry found near the coasts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. It is also known from a single major site in Libya, the Haua Fteah, where the industry is known as the Eastern Oranian.The "Western Oranian" would refer to the Iberomaurusian in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, but this expression is seldom used. The Iberomaurusian seems to have appeared around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), somewhere between c. 25,000 and 23,000 cal BP. It would have lasted until the early Holocene, c. 11,000 cal BP.
The name "Iberomaurusian" means "of Iberia and Mauretania", the latter being a Latin name for northwest Africa. Paul Maurice Pallary (1909) coined this termPallary, P., 1909. Instructions pour la recherche préhistorique dans le Nord-Ouest de l'Afrique, Algiers. to describe assemblages from the site of La Mouillah in the belief that the industry extended over the strait of Gibraltar into the Iberian Peninsula. This theory is now generally discounted (Garrod 1938), but the name has persisted.
In Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, but not in Morocco, the industry is succeeded by the Capsian industry, whose origins are unclear. The Capsian is believed either to have spread into north Africa from the Near EastCamps, G., 1974. Les Civilisations Préhistoriques de l'Afrique du Nord et du Sahara, Paris: Doin or to have evolved from the Iberomaurusian.Lubell, D., Sheppard, P. & Jackes, M., 1984. Continuity in the Epipalaeolithic of North Africa with Emphasis on the Maghreb. Advances in World Archaeology, 3, pp.143–191Irish, J.D., 2000. The Iberomaurusian enigma: North African progenitor or dead end? Journal of Human Evolution, 39(4), pp.393–410 In Morocco and western Algeria, the Iberomaurusian is succeeded by the Cardium pottery after a long hiatus.
Iosif Lazaridis et al. (2018), as summarized by Rosa Fregel (2021), contested the conclusion of Loosdrecht (2018) and argued instead that the Iberomaurusian population of Upper Paleolithic North Africa, represented by the Taforalt sample, "can be better modeled as an admixture between a Dzudzuana West component and a sub-Saharan African component" (or an "Ancient North African" component, "that may represent an even earlier split than the "). They are modeled as deriving 55% of their ancestry from the Dzudzuana-like group and 45% from the African group. Iosif Lazaridis et al. (2018) also argued that an Iberomaurusian/Taforalt-like population contributed to the genetic composition of Natufians "and not the other way around", and that this Iberomaurusian/Taforalt lineage also contributed around 13% ancestry to modern West Africans "rather than Taforalt having ancestry from an unknown Sub-Saharan African source". Fregel (2021) summarized: "More evidence will be needed to determine the specific origin of the North African Upper Paleolithic populations." Later, Iosif Lazardis documented that the Natufians had a total of 9.1% non-West Eurasian ancestry, and the explanation by the geneticist was because of their partial descent from the Paleolithic Iberomaurusians, whose contributions were estimated at 22% in Natufians. In fact in Taforalt from Morocco, a total of 41.4% non-West Eurasian ancestry is present.
Martiniano et al. (2022) later reassigned all the Taforalt samples to haplogroup E-M78 and none to E-L618, the predecessor to EV13.
D’Atanasio et al. (2023) found that Iberomaurusian-like ancestry was characterizing for the unsampled "ancient Green Saharan" population about 12,000-5,000 years ago, and that modern-day Fula people derive around 30% of their ancestry from this ancient Saharan population, which was "modeled as a sister group of ancient Northern Africans, or alternatively, as an outgroup of all the “Eurasian-ancestry” enriched groups".
A study in 2025 by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig sequenced two individuals from Takarkori (7,000 YBP), and discovered that most of their ancestry was from an unknown ancestral North African lineage, related to the African admixture component found in Iberomaurusians. However, in contrast to the Iberomaurusian Taforalt remains who showed roughly half as many Neanderthal variants and ancestry as Eurasians (and are modeled as roughly half Western Eurasian in ancestry), Takarkori samples had much less admixture from Neanderthals, but more than contemporary Sub-Saharan Africans. The study concluded that the Takarkori people represented/mostly derive from an extinct population native to North Africa that diverged there before the Out-of-Africa migration that gave rise to Eurasians, but never left Africa and became mostly isolated (both from sub-Saharan African and Eurasian groups). The Tarkakori people were modeled as deriving 93% of their ancestry from this unknown African group and 7% from a Natufian-like population from the Middle East. The study also suggests "that the Taforalt ancestry is composed of a 60% contribution from a Natufian-like Levantine population, with the remaining 40% derived from a Takarkori-like ancestral North African population". According to the study, the Takarkori people were distinct, both from contemporary sub-Saharan Africans and from non-Africans/Eurasians, and had "only a minor component of non-African ancestry" but did "not carry sub-Saharan African ancestry, suggesting that, contrary to previous interpretations, the Green Sahara was not a corridor connecting Northern and sub-Saharan Africa."Max Planck Institute. First ancient genomes from the Green Sahara deciphered. 4/02/2025 As per Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute, one of the authors of the study "The Takarkori lineage likely represents a remnant of the genetic diversity present in northern Africa between 50,000 and 20,000 years ago."Reuters. Sahara desert, once lush and green, was home to mysterious human lineage. 5/02/2025
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