Comments on: Newly Discovered Y-Chromosome SNP Among Tanzanian, Nambibian, Botswanan, Angolan Men Correlates With The Arrival Of Pastoralism In Southern Africa

By: Bookmarks about Anthropology

Bookmarks about Anthropology — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 03:30:18 +0000

[...] – bookmarked by 3 members originally found by nicnac411 on 2008-10-11 Newly Discovered Y-Chromosome SNP Among Tanzanian, Nambibian … [...]

By: Kambiz

Kambiz — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 13:36:22 +0000

I know previous work has indicated that Pygmy and Khoisan populations are very differentiated, but some Khoisan groups have B2b Pygmy traces.

By: Luis

Luis — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:46:40 +0000

I was persuaded they were only or primarily pastoralists – and haven’t found anything that denies it (Wikipedia for instance only mentions pastoralism, not a word about agriculture).

The Bantu-Pygmy mtDNA lineage is no surprise. I am not too versed in African Genetics’ small print but they do share even a Y-DNA haplogroup (B specifically, different subclades). Khoi-San are a different issue though, their paternal and maternal specific lineages are the oldest ones separated from the common tree of Humankind and shared only (at good philogenetic distance) with some East Africans, specially from Sudan. This finding emphasizes the Eastern African affinities, even if the origin seems more southerner and the arrival of later time.

As the paper implies, the mtDNA analysis indicated the shared ancestry of Khoisan and Bantu peoples is pretty deep — but what about the paternal lineage?

The paper of Quintana-Murci does not deal with the Khoisan, only with Bantu and Pygmy. The Khoisan are a totally different story. The paternal lineage, as mentioned before, of most Pygmies is haplogroup B, clade that is shared with many Bantu and other Black Africans (different subclades).

By: Kambiz

Kambiz — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:16:27 +0000

Yeah the Khoi were most definitely pastoralists as well as agriculturalists prior to European contact, Luis. Do you remember this paper, "Maternal traces of deep common ancestry and asymmetric gene flow between Pygmy hunter-gatherers and Bantu-speaking farmers"? As the paper implies, the mtDNA analysis indicated the shared ancestry of Khoisan and Bantu peoples is pretty deep -- but what about the paternal lineage? I guess that's where this new paper comes in. Kambiz

By: Luis

Luis — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:06:46 +0000

That’s pretty interesting because Hotentotes were actually cattle-herders when Europeans found them and, if that would have been a Bantu influence, guess they would have incorporated farming rather than just pastoralism.

Wonder if it might also explain the Bushmen mural art, that reminds so much of Neolithic Saharan style.

I also wonder which haplogroup was actually involved. Guess we’ll have to wait.