Genetic Structure of the Western and Eastern African Sahel/Savannah Belt and the Role of Nomadic Pastoralists as Inferred from the Variation of D-Loop Mitochondrial DNA Sequences

0492192 - ARÚ 2019 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Čížková, Martina - Munclinger, P. - Diallo, M. Y. - Kulichová, Iva - Mokhtar, M. G. - Dème, A. - Pereira, L. - Černý, Viktor
Genetic Structure of the Western and Eastern African Sahel/Savannah Belt and the Role of Nomadic Pastoralists as Inferred from the Variation of D-Loop Mitochondrial DNA Sequences.
Human Biology. Roč. 89, č. 4 (2017), s. 281-302. ISSN 0018-7143. E-ISSN 1534-6617
Institutional support: RVO:67985912
Keywords : Fulani * Arabs * mtDNA * African pastoralism * Sahel
OECD category: Archaeology
Impact factor: 0.600, year: 2017

This study provides deeper knowledge of the maternal genetic structure of the Sahel/Savannah belt in light of recent knowledge on the spread of agropastoral food-producing subsistence lifestyles. Both descriptive and coalescence analyses are performed on newly generated mitochondrial DNA dataset containing almost 2,000 samples. We found lower intra-population diversity measures in pastoralists than in farmers and pointed to significant differences in mating strategies between western and eastern pastoralists - higher gene flow between the Arabic pastoralists and neighboring farmers in the eastern part than between the Fulani pastoralists and their sedentary neighbors in the western part of the Sahel/Savannah belt are suggested by the results of the analyses. The findings are discussed in light of archaeological and linguistic data. It seems that while the process of divergence of the Fulani pastoralists in the west was accompanied by a loss of females to other populations, the Arab pastoralists' immigration to the Sahel/Savannah belt conversely resulted in gain of local females into this Arab population.
Permanent Link: http://hdl.handle.net/11104/0285738