Y-chromosome diversity in Bantu and Pygmy populations from Central Africa

Abstract

Linguistic and archaeological data have placed the Bantu homeland near the border between Cameroon and Nigeria, where the Bantu farmers are thought to have migrated from approximately 5000 years ago, spreading out over most of sub-Saharan Africa. In order to provide genetic insights into the so-called Bantu expansion, we have typed 18 well-characterized Y-chromosome short tandem repeats (STRs) in 24 Bantu and 3 Pygmy populations from Gabon and Cameroon. The results have shown not only that Bantu populations are very homogenous, but also that they are statistically very different from Pygmies and other African and non-African populations. High frequencies of the modal Bantu haplotype and of its one-step neighbours previously described have been found in all the Bantu populations sampled. Some traces of these haplotypes have also been found in Pygmies, indicating a possible Bantu-to-Pygmy flow of paternal lineages. No evidence has been found of the Fang being non-Bantu, despite their claim of having a semitic origin in Egypt. They do, however, show an intermediate allele (13.2) for DYS 385, whose date of appearance (approximately 5500 years ago) happens to coincide with the Bantu expansion.