# Is there any evidence of African migration to Europe across the Mediterranean after the Neolithic **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 4, 2018, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004 "2018-03-04T13:46:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/1 "2018-03-04T13:46:18Z")
Hi Is there any evidence of African migration to Europe across the Mediterranean after the Neolithic Period? Would those Africans living across the Strait of Gibraltar in what is now Morocco have sailed across to Spain?. It’s only 9 miles wide at its narrowest point. I look forward to your feedback ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/2 "2018-03-04T14:31:30Z")
Yes, [plenty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_migrant_crisis). This has been all over the news for the past three years. Some of the migration across the Mediterranean does occur near Gibraltar, but most if it is from Libya to Italy. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/3 "2018-03-04T15:02:41Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > Yes, [plenty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_migrant_crisis). This has been all over the news for the past three years. Some of the migration across the Mediterranean does occur near Gibraltar, but most if it is from Libya to Italy. millennia before the present crisis is what I was referring to ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/4 "2018-03-04T15:59:56Z")
I’m hardly an expert, but I’m pretty sure there’s [some](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania). ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/5 "2018-03-04T16:37:07Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > I’m hardly an expert, but I’m pretty sure there’s [some](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania). Thank Filbert, but I’m referring to ancient pre-historic times. Perhaps 5-8000 years ago? ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/6 "2018-03-04T16:44:56Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > Thank Filbert, but I’m referring to ancient pre-historic times. Perhaps 5-8000 years ago? [https://www.lonelyplanet.com/spain/history](https://www.lonelyplanet.com/spain/history) History The ancestors of today’s Spaniards included Stone Age hunters from Africa; ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/7 "2018-03-04T16:50:23Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > [https://www.lonelyplanet.com/spain/history](https://www.lonelyplanet.com/spain/history) > > History > The ancestors of today’s Spaniards included Stone Age hunters from Africa; > **[African admixture in Europe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_admixture_in_Europe)** > > African admixture in Europe refers to the presence of human genotypes attributable to periods of human population dispersals out of Africa in the genetic history of Europe. For example, certain Y-DNA and mtDNA lineages are thought to have spread from Northeastern Africa to the Near East during the later Pleistocene, and from there to Europe with the Neolithic Revolution. > More recent African admixture – primarily Berber admixture from North Africa – is associated with historic migrations through ... DNA evidence suggests that during the Last Glacial Maximum, there was some gene flow from Africa into Iberia. After the Last Glacial Maximum, when the European climate warmed up, the refuges are thought to have been the source from which Europe was repopulated. African lineages that had been introduced into the Iberian refuge would have then dispersed all over Europe with the northward expansion of humans. This could explain the presence of genetic lineages in eastern Europe and as far north as Russia that appear to have prehistoric links to northwestern and western Africa (see mtDNA).[12] It is also thought that there were human migrations from the Iberian refuges to northwestern Africa.[13] ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/8 "2018-03-04T17:05:42Z")
In 711, Tariq Ibn Ziyad conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula. Much of the ancient architecture that we admire in the region was built by North Africans. La Mezquita in Córdoba and the Alhambra palace in Granada to give but two examples. Search for “Islam in Iberia” for more detail. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/9 "2018-03-04T21:13:49Z")
Carthage, of course, had a considerable presence in Iberia. Further back, in the Chalcolithic, there’s [ivory](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Ivory-Idols-from-Perdigoes-Valera-et-al-2015_fig3_294426509)and ostrich egg shell from Africa found, but that’s evidence for trade, not migration. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/10 "2018-03-04T21:44:43Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Carthage, of course, had a considerable presence in Iberia. Carthage started out as a Phoenician colony, so the people weren’t indigenous to North Africa. However, the local peoples would probably have been absorbed as the empire spread (or the original Phoenicians would have been absorbed by them). In any case, I’m not sure how much migration there would have been between Carthage’s African and Iberian territories. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2018, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/11 "2018-03-05T08:05:41Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Carthage started out as a Phoenician colony, so the people weren’t indigenous to North Africa. The OP didn’t specify. Anyway, see below… > [@](#): > > However, the local peoples would probably have been absorbed as the empire spread (or the original Phoenicians would have been absorbed by them). Almost certainly. The Carthagians had various relations with local Berbers, including using Numidian mercenaries quite extensively. > [@](#): > > In any case, I’m not sure how much migration there would have been between Carthage’s African and Iberian territories. Quite a bit, probably, if earlier Phoenecian settlement patterns were upheld. They were colonists, not just conquerors. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2018, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/12 "2018-03-05T17:01:59Z")
My question is rather why wouldn’t there be. Aside from the large(ish) migrations, colonizations, etc. there has been people moving all around and over the Mediterranean ever since someone figured out how to make a sail. Any two points you come up with, there will have been someone who moved from one to the other at one point; two locations as close as Iberia and Maghreb, it’s been continuous in both directions - just stronger at some times than at others, and sometimes the net difference went one way, sometimes the other. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2018, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/13 "2018-03-05T17:43:02Z")
Were there times during periods of glaciation when there would have been a land bridge instead of a narrow strait? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2018, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/14 "2018-03-05T17:51:24Z")
Once you have sailing the Mediterranean isn’t a barrier to migration and trade, it’s a facilitator to migration and trade. It was easier to ship grain from Egypt to Rome than it was to bring in grain overland from the rest of Italy. North Africa was firmly part of the Mediterranean world. It wasn’t isolated. Thinking in terms of Africans migrating to Europe misses the point, because “African” just meant people who lived on the southern coast of the Mediterranean rather than the northern or eastern coast. Our modern idea that North Africa is a very different place than Europe only came about after the Islamic conquests, which divided Africa from Europe culturally for a millennia. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2018, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/15 "2018-03-05T17:53:39Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > Were there times during periods of glaciation when there would have been a land bridge instead of a narrow strait? No, the last time there was a land bridge was 5 million years ago when the Straits of Gibraltar closed and the Mediterranean mostly dried up. It hasn’t been closed since then. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/16 "2018-03-06T01:53:57Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > No, the last time there was a land bridge was 5 million years ago when the Straits of Gibraltar closed and the Mediterranean mostly dried up. It hasn’t been closed since then. Thanks Lemur866. I was wondering why there wasn’t a continuous flow of migration from Africa to what is now Spain after that hunter-gatherer migration phase. When did that migration end and why did it stop? Were there restrictions placed on the flow of people coming in? Trading/commerce must have continued. There was certainly migration to Africa. Of course with the later colonizations of Spain by Carthage, Rome and then the Moors, that flow would have only increased. My real interest is at which point it become a struggle on the part of sub-Saharan Africans to gain access to Spain? ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/17 "2018-03-06T02:34:47Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > Thanks Lemur866. I was wondering why there wasn’t a continuous flow of migration from Africa to what is now Spain after that hunter-gatherer migration phase. When did that migration end and why did it stop? Were there restrictions placed on the flow of people coming in? Trading/commerce must have continued. There was certainly migration to Africa. Of course with the later colonizations of Spain by Carthage, Rome and then the Moors, that flow would have only increased. My real interest is at which point it become a struggle on the part of sub-Saharan Africans to gain access to Spain? After the expulsion of the Moors, presumably. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/18 "2018-03-06T03:45:49Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > My real interest is at which point it become a struggle on the part of sub-Saharan Africans to gain access to Spain? Now you’re changing the question. The Africans that migrated to Spain at any point were North African populations. Sub-Saharan Africans never had easy access to Spain. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/19 "2018-03-06T11:08:07Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > My real interest is at which point it become a struggle on the part of sub-Saharan Africans to gain access to Spain? It has been a struggle for at least as long as the Sahara has existed, which has been at least seven million years. People and other creatures that are accustomed to living in savannahs and tropical forests cannot easily cross 1800 km of arid desert. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004/20 "2018-03-06T11:44:29Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > It has been a struggle for at least as long as the Sahara has existed, which has been at least seven million years. People and other creatures that are accustomed to living in savannahs and tropical forests cannot easily cross 1800 km of arid desert. The Sahara has _not_ been as arid as it is now throughout that seven million year period. It went through[several wet periods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_African_climate_cycles), the[most recent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Subpluvial)was around 7000-3000 BCE. The Sahara was savannah then. And it was just the latest [of a series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mousterian_Pluvial) of[such periods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbassia_Pluvial). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-evidence-of-african-migration-to-europe-across-the-mediterranean-after-the-neolithic/810004.md?page=2)