Interesting takes on the Fulbe and their genetics

[Charlie Bass]

It’s Getting Better All the Time: Comparative Perspectives from Oceania and West Africa on Genetic Analysis and Archaeology
2012Susan Keech McIntosh
Susan Keech McIntosh

Technological advances are making genetic data collection and analysis feasible on a scale unimaginable only a few years ago. Early genetic research using mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome provided important insights for macroscale modeling of regional and continent-wide population movements, but the capacity to study the entire genome now opens an era of finer-grained, mesoscale studies of regional and local population histories that are more compatible with the scale of archaeological analysis. The utility of integrating both types of data is illustrated by a case study from Oceania, where genetic studies were used to evaluate two models for the geographic origins of the populations that colonized Polynesia beginning ca. 3000 bp, bringing with them the distinctive Lapita cultural assemblage. A second case study considers the application of genetic studies to an understanding of Fulbe history, especially that of the pastoral Fulbe. Both archaeological and genetic data are underdeveloped for the key Fulbe homeland regions of Mauritania and Senegal, but recent research in the Middle Senegal Valley permits some conjectures on the history of Fulbe nomadic pastoralism. The article concludes with suggestions for a multidisciplinary research agenda to expand and upgrade the quality of relevant archaeological data, incorporate biodistance studies of human skeletal material, and improve and expand genetic sampling using more historically sensitive collection protocols.

More Info: Laura B. Scheinfeldt, co-author
Journal Name: African Archaeological Review
Publication Date: 2012

[Charlie Bass]

www.academia.edu/5846196/It_s_Getting_Better_All_the_Time_Comparative_Perspectives_from_Oceania_and_West_Africa_on_Genetic_Analysis_and_Archaeology


It says they potentially have their origins in the Middle Niger Valley(The Niger Valley in West Africa, like the Nile Valley in NE Africa, seems to be the center of civilization(s)?) and that they expanded east and south from Futa Tooro. What I would like to know is have the Toucoleur and Serer been genetically tested to see if they share a common origin with the Fulbe. Some excerpts now:

It is at this time that the Fulbe first appear in a European document: The 1339 map by Majorcan mapmaker Angelino Dulcert includes
“
Felle
”
(Fula) and
“
Tochoror
”
(Tukolor or Takrur), located to the southwest of Ganuya (ancient Ghana)(Roncière 1925, pp. 56, 114). The Tukolor historically are Fulfulde-speaking settledagriculturalists living in the Middle Senegal Valley (MSV) floodplain. It is not knownhow far back their Fulfulde linguistic identity extends, as the ethnic name references theearly MSV polity of Takrur, of unknown linguistic affiliation, and several different ethnic groups claim historical presence in the MSV, including Serer and Soninke. Thegreat eastward migration of Fulbe from the Macina began in the fifteenth centuryaccording to the Kano Chronicle, reaching Katsina and Kano by the 1460s and thenBorno and Adamawa. By the seventeenth century, the Fulbe had penetrated to southernDarfur,viaBaguirmiandWadai(Braukamper 1993). In the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies, Islamized Fulbe traveled as itinerant scholars and marabouts; the eighteenthand nineteenth centuries saw expansionist jihadist movements led by Fulbe theocratssuch as Seku Amadu, Usman dan Fodio, and Ahmadu Bello. Segments of Fulbesociety became settled, while others retained the pastoral life of the
Fulbe ladde
(bushor nomadic Fulbe), of which the Wodaabe of Niger are the iconic example (Dupire1962; Blench 1999). The nomadic Fulbe continued to spread by
“
migratory drift
”
(Stenning 1959), entering new areas to the south opened up by deforestation in thetwentieth century as they sought to avoid colonial taxation. Some Fulfulde speakersmoved back to the Futa Tooro from Macina under French rule.The question of Fulbe origins has been the focus of considerable historical interest and speculation. European colonizers were impressed by the success of Fulfuldespeakers in the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries in creating states and spreadingIslam across a vast swath of the Sahel and savanna (Robinson 1975). In an era of racially framed historical scenarios, the distinctive physical appearance of the Fulbe prompted theories of distant origins; source areas in India, Malaysia, and Syria, aswell as Ethiopia, the Nile Valley, and Libya have at various times been proposed(Brasseur and Brasseur 1981; Tauxier 1937), with claims of Hamitic affiliation prominently featured. Greenberg's (1949, 1963) definitive classification of Fulfuldeas a West Atlantic language contravened such conjectures, and Murdock (1959)followed him in emphasizing the local emergence of the Fulbe in the vicinity of theSenegal Valley. Tauxier is still occasionally cited as the authority for Fulbe origins inthe northeast (e.g ., Cerny et al. 2006). Another source with a long shelf life is Dieterlen and Ba's (1966) intricate interpretation of certain scenes in the Tassili rock art as depictions of Fulbe rituals and ceremonies. The notion of a discernible Fulbe identity extending back millennia to the Central Saharan pastoralists had a number of adherents at one point (Simoons 1971, p. 435, note 18). Today, there is greater skepticism over the earlier interpretations of the rock art (Smith 2005, 136– 137).

Is she stating or trying to state that the rock art does not show prehistoric Fulbe?

But then she cites this:

More recently, ADMIXTURE analysis (a clustering program similar toSTRUCTURE) by Henn et al. (2012) suggests an absence of northeast African ancestry among the Fulbe (pastoral Wodaabe from Nigeria were sampled), andconfirms a mixed sub-Saharan and northwest African (possibly Berber) ancestry, possibly of some antiquity (Fig. 10).

It can't be Berber, because the Fulbe language shows no traces of Berber elements, nor heavy vocabulary borrowing, but the low frequency of so called "Eurasian" mtDNA lineages may point to Fulbe assimilating some Berber women.


I await al-Takruri's analysis on this since this is his field as I am totally confused on Fulbe origins.

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

Thx Chazz, your deference humbles me.

PERSONAL OPINION

Toucouleur are Hal Pulaaren par excellance.

No Fula will dare open their mouth
to say otherwise in the presence of
a Pulo or gathering of Hal Pulaaren
and Fulfulde.

It's internal classism and I'd
rather steer clear of prejudice
against 'Bororo' whom the whites
love to boost as "pure Fulani".

Our Holocene group origin is what
today is southeast Algeria during
the last African Humid Period.


[Most every West African ethny has
Tropical North Africa to Lake Chad
mid-late Holocene so-called Saharo-
Sudanese "origins."]


We are intertwined with Serere,
Zenaga, Wolof, and Mandinko in
particular among others. Nor do
necessarily deny minor increment
from scattered south Levantines.

And we don't give a rat's rear end
what anybody says or thinks about us.

We have no problem either arguing
or physically fighting a Black or
Berber about ourselves or anything
at all really.

White stereotypes aside our economy
is as varied as is expected of any
descendants but not always rulers of
a territorial state founded ~1200 years
ago, and Tekrur is the first such polity
known from 'medieval' far West Africa.


Not to bias this thread
that's all I shall say.


The Macintosh can better spend their
time delving into their own Scott and
Irish peoples' ethnic origins and north
Greater Britain archaeology then to
play the know-it-all great white father
experts on West Africa and its peoples.




EDIT:
W/o promising I'll post independent
ADMIXTURE pgm results by elMaestro
whose data I trust but not so much
his interpretations.

[Charlie Bass]

Jun 27, 2019 8:49:23 GMT -5 Tukuler al~Takruri said:

Thx Chazz, your deference humbles me.

PERSONAL OPINION

Toucouleur are Hal Pulaaren par excellance.

No Fula will dare open their mouth
to say otherwise in the presence of
a Pulo or gathering of Hal Pulaaren
and Fulfulde.

It's internal classism and I'd
rather steer clear of prejudice
against 'Bororo' whom the whites
love to boost as "pure Fulani".

Our Holocene group origin is what
today is southeast Algeria during
the last African Humid Period.


[Most every West African ethny has
Tropical North Africa to Lake Chad
mid-late Holocene so-called Saharo-
Sudanese "origins."]


We are intertwined with Serere,
Zenaga, Wolof, and Mandinko in
particular among others. Nor do
necessarily deny minor increment
from scattered south Levantines.

And we don't give a rat's rear end
what anybody says or thinks about us.

We have no problem either arguing
or physically fighting a Black or
Berber about ourselves or anything
at all really.

White stereotypes aside our economy
is as varied as is expected of any
descendants but not always rulers of
a territorial state founded ~1200 years
ago, and Tekrur is the first such polity
known from 'medieval' far West Africa.


Not to bias this thread
that's all I shall say.


The Macintosh can better spend their
time delving into their own Scott and
Irish peoples' ethnic origins and north
Greater Britain archaeology then to
play the know-it-all great white father
experts on West Africa and its peoples.




EDIT:
W/o promising I'll post independent
ADMIXTURE pgm results by elMaestro
whose data I trust but not so much
his interpretations.

I can agree here somewhat. That they suggest that the Saharan Rock art may not be Pulareen is crazy. The rock art clearly shows the hair bun that is typical of modern Fulani, and differs from the round head style seen in the rock art.

[Charlie Bass]

Just dug up this study:



Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=iahb20
Download by:
[147.231.64.4]
Date:
01 June 2017, At: 23:54
Annals of Human Biology
ISSN: 0301-4460 (Print) 1464-5033 (Online) Journal homepage: www.tandfonline.com/loi/iahb20
Alu insertion polymorphisms in the African Saheland the origin of Fulani pastoralists
Martina Čížková, Zuzana Hofmanová, Mohammed G. Mokhtar, Václav Janoušek, Issa Diallo, Pavel Munclinger & Viktor Černý

ABSTRACT
Background:
The origin of Western African pastoralism, represented today by the Fulani nomads, hasbeen a highly debated issue for the past decades, and has not yet been conclusively resolved.
Aim:
This study focused on
Alu
polymorphisms in sedentary and nomadic populations across theAfrican Sahel to investigate patterns of diversity that can complement the existing results and contrib-ute to resolving issues concerning the origin of West African pastoralism.
Subjects and methods:
A new dataset of 21
Alu
biallelic markers covering a substantial part of theAfrican Sahel has been analysed jointly with several published North African populations.
Results:
Interestingly, with regard to
Alu
variation, the relationship of Fulani pastoralists to NorthAfricans is not as evident as was earlier revealed by studies of uniparental loci such as mtDNA andNRY.
Alu
insertions point rather to an affinity of Fulani pastoralists to Eastern Africans also leading apastoral lifestyle.
Conclusions:
It is suggested that contemporary Fulani pastoralists might be descendants of an ancestral Eastern African population that, while crossing the Sahara in the Holocene, admixed slightly with a popu-lation of Eurasian (as evidenced by uniparental polymorphisms) ancestry. It seems that, in the Fulani pas-toralists,
Alu
elements reflect more ancient genetic relationships than do uniparental genetic system