MtDNA Profile of West Africa Guineans: Towards a Better Understanding of the Senegambia Region
Alexandra Rosa et al.
The matrilineal genetic composition of 372 samples from the Republic of Guiné-Bissau (West African coast) was studied using RFLPs and partial sequencing of the mtDNA control and coding region. The majority of the mtDNA lineages of Guineans (94%) belong to West African specific sub-clusters of L0-L3 haplogroups. A new L3 sub-cluster (L3h) that is found in both eastern and western Africa is present at moderately low frequencies in Guinean populations. A non-random distribution of haplogroups U5 in the Fula group, the U6 among the “Brame” linguistic family and M1 in the Balanta-Djola group, suggests a correlation between the genetic and linguistic affiliation of Guinean populations. The presence of M1 in Balanta populations supports the earlier suggestion of their Sudanese origin. Haplogroups U5 and U6, on the other hand, were found to be restricted to populations that are thought to represent the descendants of a southern expansion of Berbers. Particular haplotypes, found almost exclusively in East-African populations, were found in some ethnic groups with an oral tradition claiming Sudanese origin.
A possible ancient migration from Asia to Africa was proposed by Cruciani et al. (2002) to explain the presence of some unusual Y-chromosome lineages identified in West Africa. Haplogroup R1 (defined by M173 mutation), without further branch defining mutations (M269 and M17) specific to Europeans, accounted for ~40% of the Y-chromosomes in North-Cameroon, while not yet having been sampled elsewhere in Africa. More data from Central and Western Africa are needed to cast light on the origin of such idiosyncratic mtDNA and Y chromosome lineages. Thus, our U5 sequences from the Guinean Fulbe people corroborate Cruciani’s hypothesis of a prehistoric migration from Eurasia to West Sub-Saharan Africa, testified by their present day restricted and localised distribution.
Another one..
Despite the large size of the contemporary nomadic Fulani population (roughly 13 million people), the genetic diversity and degree of differentiation of Fulanis compared to other sub-Saharan populations remain unknown. We sampled four Fulani nomad populations (n = 186) in three countries of sub-Saharan Africa (Chad, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso) and analyzed sequences of the first hypervariable segment of the mitochondrial DNA. Most of the haplotypes belong to haplogroups of West African origin, such as L1b, L3b, L3d, L2b, L2c, and L2d (79.6% in total), which are all well represented in each of the four geographically separated samples. The haplogroups of Western Eurasian origin, such as J1b, U5, H, and V, were also detected but in rather low frequencies (8.1% in total). As in African hunter-gatherers (Pygmies and Khoisan) and some populations from central Tunisia (Kesra and Zriba), three of the Fulani nomad samples do not reveal significant negative values of Fu’s selective neutrality test. The multidimensional scaling of F^sub ST^ genetic distances of related sub-Saharan populations and the analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) show clear and close relationships between all pairs of the four Fulani nomad samples, irrespective of their geographic origin. The only group of nomadic Fulani that manifests some similarities with geographically related agricultural populations (from Guinea-Bissau and Nigeria) comes from Tcheboua in northern Cameroon.
This is a bloody long read, the full item is here.
Mathilda's Anthropology Blog. 