Migrations by infiltrations and its impact on genetic structure – The population history of nomadic versus sedentary populations of the African Sahel.

Mgr. Viktor Černý, Dr., 2008-2010

The aim of this project is to analyze still insufficiently understood genetic consequences of mutual contacts of the settled and nomadic human populations. The fundamental role will be played by separate and regionally differentiated groups of the Fulani herders dispersed in the African Sahel. Their mutual contacts with neighboring agricultural populations are relatively well documented by ethnography, linguistics, and even archaeology. Similarly as the findings about relationships of hunter-gatherer and farmer populations our results could serve as a model of past infiltration processes that were important demographic events from the Neolithic (post-colonization) period onwards. If the infiltration of sedentary populations is realized only (or predominantly) by the nomadic females on a long-term period scale and not only at the level of our own two-or-three generation visibility we can expect a reduced mtDNA diversity of the nomadic groups in comparison with that of their sedentary neighbors; in case of reduced NRY rather genetic drift can be expected as a main factor. The localization of the origins of Fulani expansion complemented by the phylogeographic analyses of whole mtDNA genomes of selected haplogroups is also integral part of this project.