Abstract:
Human evolutionary history in Central Africa reflects a deep history of population connectivity. However, Central African hunter-gatherers (CAHGs) currently speak languages acquired from their neighbouring farmers. Hence it remains unclear which aspects of CAHG cultural diversity results from long-term evolution preceding agriculture and which reflect borrowing from farmers. On the basis of musical instruments, foraging tools, specialized vocabulary and genome-wide data from ten CAHG populations, we reveal evidence of large-scale cultural interconnectivity among CAHGs before and after the Bantu expansion. We also show that the distribution of hunter-gatherer musical instruments correlates with the oldest genomic segments in our sample predating farming. Music-related words are widely shared between western and eastern groups and likely precede the borrowing of Bantu languages. In contrast, subsistence tools are less frequently exchanged and may result from adaptation to local ecologies. We conclude that CAHG material culture and specialized lexicon reflect a long evolutionary history in Central Africa.
摘要:
中非人类进化史反映了人口连通性的深刻历史。然而,中非狩猎采集者(CAHG)目前讲的是从邻近农民那里获得的语言。因此,尚不清楚CAHG文化多样性的哪些方面是由农业之前的长期演变产生的,哪些反映了向农民的借贷。在乐器的基础上,觅食工具,来自十个CAHG种群的专业词汇和全基因组数据,我们揭示了班图人扩张前后CAHGs之间大规模文化相互联系的证据。我们还表明,狩猎采集者乐器的分布与我们的样本中最古老的基因组片段相关。与音乐相关的单词在西方和东方群体之间广泛共享,并且可能先于借用班图语。相比之下,生计工具的交换频率较低,可能是适应当地生态的结果。我们得出的结论是,CAHG物质文化和专业词典反映了中非悠久的进化史。