Ethnicity and genetics in Sub-Saharan Africa

Résumé

Africa is the homeland of modern Humans and has the highest levels of genetic diversity both within and between populations, and therefore Africa is of vital importance for human population genetics. In African continent, several major population movements occurred, having a determinant role in the shaping of the nowadays genetic diversity patterns. For that reason, the purpose of this study was to increase the knowledge about the Bantu and Nilotic migrations, as well as, about the hypothesis of ¿back to Africa¿ migration that both occurred in Africa, making use of both paternal and maternal genetic information in combination with historic, archaeological and linguistic interpretations. The results acquired allowed to obtain new data and clarify some aspects related with the Nilotic and Bantu population expansions and also with the hypothesis of a ¿back to Africa¿ migration.