Genetic Evidence
The genetic proximity observed between the Northwest-Africans and Southern Europeans is due to the fact that both these groups shared a common ancestor either in the Upper Paleolithic, in the Neolithic or alternatively during history with the invasion and the occupation during nearly seven centuries of the Iberian Peninsula by Moorish troops. A genetic study published in January 2012 stated that the indigenous North African ancestry appears most closely related to populations outside of Africa but "divergence between Maghrebi peoples and Near Eastern/Europeans likely precedes the Holocene (>12,000 ya)."
Read more about this topic: Maghrebis, Anthropology, Genetics and Linguistics
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