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Reconstructing the dispersals and adaptive history of Bantu-speaking populations in Africa and North America

Bantu languages are spoken by ~310 million Africans, yet the genetic history of Bantu-speaking populations remains largely unexplored. We generated genomic data for 1,318 individuals from 35 populations in western central Africa, where Bantu languages originated. We found that early Bantu speakers first moved southward, through the equatorial rainforest, before spreading toward eastern and southern Africa. We also found that genetic adaptation of Bantu speakers was facilitated by admixture with autochthonous populations, particularly for the HLA and LCT loci. Finally, we identified a major contribution of western central African Bantu speakers to the ancestry of African Americans, whose genomes present no strong signals of natural selection. Together, these results highlight the contribution of Bantu-speaking peoples to the complex genetic history of Africans and African Americans.

Click on a Dataset ID in the table below to learn more, and to find out who to contact about access to these data

Dataset ID Description Technology Samples
EGAD00010001209 Illumina HumanOmniExpress-12 1235
Publications Citations
Population collapse in Congo rainforest from 400 CE urges reassessment of the Bantu Expansion.
Sci Adv 7: 2021 eabd8352
11
Population interconnectivity over the past 120,000 years explains distribution and diversity of Central African hunter-gatherers.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 119: 2022 e2113936119
9
A genetic and linguistic analysis of the admixture histories of the islands of Cabo Verde.
Elife 12: 2023 e79827
3
Eurasian back-migration into Northeast Africa was a complex and multifaceted process.
PLoS One 18: 2023 e0290423
1
Deep history of cultural and linguistic evolution among Central African hunter-gatherers.
Nat Hum Behav 8: 2024 1263-1275
3