The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa
- Author
- Cesar A. Fortes-Lima, Concetta Burgarella, Rickard Hammarén, Anders Eriksson, Mário Vicente, Cecile Jolly, Armando Semo, Hilde Gunnink (UGent) , Sara Pacchiarotti (UGent) , Leon Mundeke, Igor Roland Matonda Sakala (UGent) , Joseph Koni Muluwa (UGent) , Peter Coutros (UGent) , Terry S. Nyambe, Justin Cirhuza Cikomola, Vinet Coetzee, Minique de Castro, Peter Ebbesen, Joris Delanghe (UGent) , Mark Stoneking, Lawrence Barham, Marlize Lombard, Anja Meyer, Maryna Steyn, Helena Malmström, Jorge Rocha, Himla Soodyall, Brigitte Pakendorf, Koen Bostoen (UGent) and Carina M. Schlebusch
- Organization
- Project
-
- BANTUFIRST (The First Bantu Speakers South of the Rainforest: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach to Human Migration, Language Spread, Climate Change and Early Farming in Late Holocene Central Africa)
- Language contact and linguistic reconstruction: (pre)historic Bantu-Khoisan interactions in Southern Africa in a historical linguistic perspective
- Directionality in morphosyntactic change: West-Coastal Bantu as a historical test case for linguistic theory
- Abstract
- The expansion of people speaking Bantu languages is the most dramatic demographic event in Late Holocene Africa and fundamentally reshaped the linguistic, cultural and biological landscape of the continent. With a comprehensive genomic dataset, including newly generated data of modern-day and ancient DNA from previously unsampled regions in Africa, we contribute insights into this expansion that started 6,000–4,000 years ago in western Africa. We genotyped 1,763 participants, including 1,526 Bantu speakers from 147 populations across 14 African countries, and generated whole-genome sequences from 12 Late Iron Age individuals. We show that genetic diversity amongst Bantu-speaking populations declines with distance from western Africa, with current-day Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo as possible crossroads of interaction. Using spatially explicit methods and correlating genetic, linguistic and geographical data, we provide cross-disciplinary support for a serial-founder migration model. We further show that Bantu speakers received significant gene flow from local groups in regions they expanded into. Our genetic dataset provides an exhaustive modern-day African comparative dataset for ancient DNA studies and will be important to a wide range of disciplines from science and humanities, as well as to the medical sector studying human genetic variation and health in African and African-descendant populations.
- Keywords
- Multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, Bantu, Africa, evolutionary genetics, deep history, demic expansion, admixture, POPULATION-STRUCTURE, HISTORY, MIGRATION, ANCESTRY, REVEALS, ADAPTATION, ADMIXTURE, SEGMENTS, INFORM
Downloads
-
s41586-023-06770-6.pdf
- full text (Published version)
- |
- open access
- |
- |
- 20.62 MB
Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-01HGJBRQ3KERERBY4T84NEQGHN
- MLA
- Fortes-Lima, Cesar A., et al. “The Genetic Legacy of the Expansion of Bantu-Speaking Peoples in Africa.” NATURE, vol. 625, no. 7995, 2024, pp. 540–47, doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06770-6.
- APA
- Fortes-Lima, C. A., Burgarella, C., Hammarén, R., Eriksson, A., Vicente, M., Jolly, C., … Schlebusch, C. M. (2024). The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa. NATURE, 625(7995), 540–547. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06770-6
- Chicago author-date
- Fortes-Lima, Cesar A., Concetta Burgarella, Rickard Hammarén, Anders Eriksson, Mário Vicente, Cecile Jolly, Armando Semo, et al. 2024. “The Genetic Legacy of the Expansion of Bantu-Speaking Peoples in Africa.” NATURE 625 (7995): 540–47. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06770-6.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Fortes-Lima, Cesar A., Concetta Burgarella, Rickard Hammarén, Anders Eriksson, Mário Vicente, Cecile Jolly, Armando Semo, Hilde Gunnink, Sara Pacchiarotti, Leon Mundeke, Igor Roland Matonda Sakala, Joseph Koni Muluwa, Peter Coutros, Terry S. Nyambe, Justin Cirhuza Cikomola, Vinet Coetzee, Minique de Castro, Peter Ebbesen, Joris Delanghe, Mark Stoneking, Lawrence Barham, Marlize Lombard, Anja Meyer, Maryna Steyn, Helena Malmström, Jorge Rocha, Himla Soodyall, Brigitte Pakendorf, Koen Bostoen, and Carina M. Schlebusch. 2024. “The Genetic Legacy of the Expansion of Bantu-Speaking Peoples in Africa.” NATURE 625 (7995): 540–547. doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06770-6.
- Vancouver
- 1.Fortes-Lima CA, Burgarella C, Hammarén R, Eriksson A, Vicente M, Jolly C, et al. The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa. NATURE. 2024;625(7995):540–7.
- IEEE
- [1]C. A. Fortes-Lima et al., “The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa,” NATURE, vol. 625, no. 7995, pp. 540–547, 2024.
@article{01HGJBRQ3KERERBY4T84NEQGHN,
abstract = {{The expansion of people speaking Bantu languages is the most dramatic demographic event in Late Holocene Africa and fundamentally reshaped the linguistic, cultural and biological landscape of the continent. With a comprehensive genomic dataset, including newly generated data of modern-day and ancient DNA from previously unsampled regions in Africa, we contribute insights into this expansion that started 6,000–4,000 years ago in western Africa. We genotyped 1,763 participants, including 1,526 Bantu speakers from 147 populations across 14 African countries, and generated whole-genome sequences from 12 Late Iron Age individuals. We show that genetic diversity amongst Bantu-speaking populations declines with distance from western Africa, with current-day Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo as possible crossroads of interaction. Using spatially explicit methods and correlating genetic, linguistic and geographical data, we provide cross-disciplinary support for a serial-founder migration model. We further show that Bantu speakers received significant gene flow from local groups in regions they expanded into. Our genetic dataset provides an exhaustive modern-day African comparative dataset for ancient DNA studies and will be important to a wide range of disciplines from science and humanities, as well as to the medical sector studying human genetic variation and health in African and African-descendant populations.}},
author = {{Fortes-Lima, Cesar A. and Burgarella, Concetta and Hammarén, Rickard and Eriksson, Anders and Vicente, Mário and Jolly, Cecile and Semo, Armando and Gunnink, Hilde and Pacchiarotti, Sara and Mundeke, Leon and Matonda Sakala, Igor Roland and Koni Muluwa, Joseph and Coutros, Peter and Nyambe, Terry S. and Cikomola, Justin Cirhuza and Coetzee, Vinet and de Castro, Minique and Ebbesen, Peter and Delanghe, Joris and Stoneking, Mark and Barham, Lawrence and Lombard, Marlize and Meyer, Anja and Steyn, Maryna and Malmström, Helena and Rocha, Jorge and Soodyall, Himla and Pakendorf, Brigitte and Bostoen, Koen and Schlebusch, Carina M.}},
issn = {{0028-0836}},
journal = {{NATURE}},
keywords = {{Multidisciplinary,interdisciplinary,Bantu,Africa,evolutionary genetics,deep history,demic expansion,admixture,POPULATION-STRUCTURE,HISTORY,MIGRATION,ANCESTRY,REVEALS,ADAPTATION,ADMIXTURE,SEGMENTS,INFORM}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{7995}},
pages = {{540--547}},
title = {{The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa}},
url = {{http://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06770-6}},
volume = {{625}},
year = {{2024}},
}
- Altmetric
- View in Altmetric
- Web of Science
- Times cited: