Cultural and linguistic networks of Central African hunter-gatherers have ancient origins, study finds

Extensive social networks among the various hunter-gatherer groups in the Congo Basin existed long before agriculture entered the region. This continent-wide exchange preserved the cultural diversity that developed thousands of years ago, as researchers at the University of Zurich have shown based on musical instruments, specialized vocabulary and genetic information.

According to recent research based on genetic, archaeological and paleoenvironmental data, central Africa has been occupied by hunter-gatherer populations for hundreds of thousands of years. However, contemporary hunter-gatherers living in the Congo Basin speak languages ​​they recently acquired from their agricultural Bantu neighbors.

This raises the question of which elements of ancient cultural diversity in Central Africa stem from long-term development and regional cultural exchange prior to agriculture, and which aspects are influenced by interactions with farming communities.

Culture, language and genes evolve together

An international team of researchers led by Andrea Migliano from the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Zurich (UZH) has discovered previously unknown links between culture, language and genes among different hunter-gatherer populations in Central Africa.

“We found that the distribution of musical instruments among hunter-gatherers is very strongly correlated with those genetic segments that are of ancient origin. So these populations were exchanging musical instruments long before there were any agricultural populations in the region,” says Migliano.

The project was developed by Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias, Ph.D. student and first author. The results are published in the journal Nature Human behavior.

The timing of genetic exchanges between populations can be inferred by tracing the origins of specific segments of the genome. To do this, the researchers collected genetic data from eleven Central African hunter-gatherer groups and divided their DNA into segments based on the timing of exchanges: those introduced by introgression or exchange with Bantu populations, those from recent exchanges between hunter-gatherer populations. and those of ancient origin.

In addition, the team compiled an extensive dataset of musical and foraging instruments along with their names from historical documents and ethnographies. They then compared how the structure of cultural diversity—the similarity between groups in the repertoire of musical and subsistence instruments, based on the presence or absence of similar musical instruments—correlated with genetic diversity at different points in time.

Extensive social networks spanning thousands of kilometers

“It was surprising that, although different Central African hunter-gatherer groups speak languages ​​from very different families, they share a disproportionate number of music-related words. Therefore, these words can be traced back to pre-hunter-gatherer populations.” they adopted the languages ​​of their Bantu neighbors,” says anthropologist Migliano.

The results suggest that extensive interactions among hunter-gatherer groups in the Congo Basin, even among those thousands of kilometers apart, influenced not only their genetic makeup but also their linguistic and cultural traits. These extensive social networks helped preserve the cultural diversity that developed thousands of years before agriculture came to the region.

Migliano adds, “The extensive cultural network of modern humans has deep roots in the past, at least in Central Africa.”