Insights into the demographic history of African Pygmies from complete mitochondrial genomes

Pygmy populations are among the few hunter-gatherers currently living in sub-Saharan Africa and are mainly represented by two groups, Eastern and Western, according to their current geographical distribution. They are scattered across the Central African belt and surrounded by Bantu-speaking farmers, with whom they have complex social and economic interactions. To investigate the demographic history of Pygmy groups, a population approach was applied to the analysis of 205 complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences from ten central African populations. No sharing of maternal lineages was observed between the two Pygmy groups, with haplogroup L1c being characteristic of the Western group but most of Eastern Pygmy lineages falling into subclades of L0a, L2a, and L5. Demographic inferences based on Bayesian coalescent simulations point to an early split among the maternal ancestors of Pygmies and those of Bantu-speaking farmers (∼70,000 years ago [ya]).

Bibliographic Details

Main Authors:	Batini, Chiara, Lopes, Joao, Behar, Doron M., Calafell, Francesc, Jorde, Lynn B., Veen, Lolke van der, Quintana-Murci, Lluis, Spedini, Gabriella, Destro-Bisol, Giovanni, Comas, David
Other Authors:	Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (España)
Format:	artículo biblioteca
Language:	English
Published:	Oxford University Press 2010-11-01
Subjects:	Mitochondrial genome, African Pygmies, Coalescent simulations, Demography, Phylogeography,
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10261/42475 http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100002809
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