One of two data highlights published today explores the expansion of Bantu-speaking populations. It is entitled ‘New DNA research into Bantu-speaking populations’ expansion provides a resource for future studies’. It is based on work recently published in Nature, please see Fortes-Lima et al. (2023) for the original open-access article.

Around one-third of people in Africa speak at least one Bantu language (of which there are over 500). The expansion of people speaking one of these languages is considered one of the most dramatic events in late-Holocene Africa. The work done by Fortes-Lima et al. (2023) is the first to suggest a serial-founder migration model. This was achieved using more up-to-date genetic methods and modeling approaches than in previous studies. The authors have created a new genetic dataset, called ‘AfricanNeo’, which is a valuable resource for multiple disciplines, including health, medicine, and humanities. They have made the code used for creating their plots avaiable for reuse.

To read more, check out the data highlight: New DNA research into Bantu-speaking populations’ expansion provides a resource for future studies. Other data highlights on similar topics will also be visible at the bottom of the article.

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