It amazes me how little population migration there has been in africa. Discrete groups remain isolated from each other for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. Everywhere else, population migrations and genetic mixing has occured regularly.
Probably because Africa is very hard to cross on foot. There is a desert up north and a very dense jungle in the middle surrounded by savannahs and rivers full of dangerous animals. Also probably hunter gatherers in Africa had it pretty good because of the abundant flora and fauna, so there was no need to trek far. So the only people that mixed with others were sea faring tribes or came in contact with sea faring traders. Like Madagascar people have Austronesian genes in their DNA and even their languages falls under the Austronesian family.
It amazes me how little population migration there has been in africa. Discrete groups remain isolated from each other for tens or even hundreds of thousands of years. Everywhere else, population migrations and genetic mixing has occured regularly.
Probably because Africa is very hard to cross on foot. There is a desert up north and a very dense jungle in the middle surrounded by savannahs and rivers full of dangerous animals. Also probably hunter gatherers in Africa had it pretty good because of the abundant flora and fauna, so there was no need to trek far. So the only people that mixed with others were sea faring tribes or came in contact with sea faring traders. Like Madagascar people have Austronesian genes in their DNA and even their languages falls under the Austronesian family.
My guess is that Africa’s more equitable geography didn’t often spur people to leave where they were born.