Ancestors Of African Pygmies And Neighboring Farmers Separated Around 60,000 Years Ago

ScienceDaily ^ | April 11, 2009 | Public Library of Science

[SunkenCiv]

All African Pygmies, inhabiting a large territory extending west-to-east along Central Africa, descend from a unique population who lived around 20,000 years ago, according to an international study led by researchers at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. The research concludes that the ancestors of present-day African Pygmies and farmers separated ~60,000 years ago... Two groups of Pygmy populations live in the African rainforests: the "Western Pygmies" and the "Eastern Pygmies"... The researchers, led by Lluis Quintana-Murci, studied the genetic profile of twelve populations of Pygmies and neighboring farmers dispersed over the African continent, using sequence data from non-coding regions of their genomes. Using simulation-based procedures, they determined that the ancestors of Pygmy hunter-gatherers and farming populations started to diverge ~60,000 years ago... Much later, ~20,000 years ago, Western and Eastern Pygmies separated, concurrently with a period of climate change leading to large retreats of the equatorial rainforest into refugia... However, complete genome-wide profiles of these populations are now needed, both to characterize more precisely their demographic history and to identify genes involved in the adaptation of these populations with different lifestyles to their specific ecological habitats.

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	OTOH: Despite Their Diversity, Pygmies Of Western Central Africa Share Recent Common Ancestors Cell Press ScienceDaily February 6, 2009 ...they diverged from a single ancestral population just about 2,800 years ago... Paul Verdu of Musee de l'Homme in Paris[:] ..."despite the fact that there is no such thing nowadays as a pygmy civilization or identity and despite their great cultural heterogeneity -- Western pygmy populations in fact do share a common origin and recently diverged from one another." Nevertheless, pygmy populations today do not know about one another, and they have no myth or story about their own origin, Verdu emphasized. In fact, pygmies do not call themselves "Pygmies." Rather, they identify themselves as distinct ethnic groups, including Kola, Baka, Efe, or Nsua, to name a few. There is also no pygmy language. All pygmy populations speak the language of their non-pygmy neighbors, representing two different language families in Western Central Africa. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[exist]

Then how do you explain...

[allmendream]

The same patterns we see DEVELOPING in divergent populations kept in reproductive isolation is the EXACT same pattern we see already present in species that shared a recent common ancestor.

[Tarpon]

Well sure they were all huddled down there. Europe was a giant glacier.

[Varda]

I was taught that there is more human genetic diversity in Africa than in all the rest of the world combined. It used to be said that Pygmies were so different from other people they could be called their own race.

[allmendream]

That is true. An African from North Africa is just as distinct by DNA from an African from East Africa as they are from a Chinese person, a European, or an Aborigine.

That being said though, we as a species have very LITTLE genetic diversity. We are all very similar to each other; as would be expected considering the very recent common ancestry of our comparatively young species.

[Jack Black]

A few pictures of actual pygmies seemed in order.

[SunkenCiv]

My view is, the jury is not only still out, it will never come back in. ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

Weird coincidence, eh? ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

He’s a doc, but mostly we call him grumpy.

[Varda]

I agree we are relatively homogenous but there are still distinct differences that can be measured. For instance, an African from North Africa (caucasion) is more related to Europeans than they are to Chinese and much less related to Aborigines.

I would guess the North African would be equally (distantly) related to Pygmies and Aborigines.

[Varda]

The jury in in, genetic analysis is determining the relationships.

[Varda]

oops-
The jury in is in

[Liberty1970]

Studies of mtDNA confirm there is a high level of internal divergence among African populations, consistent with this study. On the other hand, I wish they would use more empirical methods to drive their dating models. We know from the low levels of variation in worldwide mitochondrial DNA that all humans shared a common ancestor only a few thousand years ago (if longer, the number of variants and their spread through the population would be much greater).

These inflated ages are not the result of empirical studies of mutation rates (which demand much younger ages) but rather are based on evolutionary models and assumptions. Then they turn around and call the results evidence of evolution! It's like dealing with flat earthers who only want to talk about their landscaped lawn and keep ignoring the testimony of astronauts living around them.

The “Eve” Mitochondrial Consensus Sequence

[PapaBear3625]

For instance, an African from North Africa (caucasion) is more related to Europeans than they are to Chinese and much less related to Aborigines.

The people along the Mediterranean coast are relatively closely related to each other, after thousands of years of interaction and trade. Sub-Saharan Africa, OTOH, was very much isolated from North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe.

[bert]

So which group migrated to Zambales Provence in the Philippines?

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[SunkenCiv]

I’ll stand by what I said — the jury will never be in.

[SunkenCiv]

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