Reviewing the Sudanic/TaNihisi Origins of the Balanta

Penguin Atlas of African History: New Edition, Colin McEvedy p.15

Penguin Atlas of African History: New Edition, Colin McEvedy p.15

1.       According to Wikipedia, The Nilotic peoples are peoples indigenous to the Nile Valley…. The Nilotes constitute the majority of the population in South Sudan, an area that is believed to be their original point of dispersal. After the Bantu peoples, they constitute the second-most numerous group of peoples inhabiting the African Great Lakes region around the Eastern Great Rift.[2] They make up a notable part of the population of southwestern Ethiopia as well. A Proto-Nilotic unity, separate from an earlier undifferentiated Eastern Sudanic unity, is assumed to have emerged by the 3rd millennium BC. The development of the Proto-Nilotes as a group may have been connected with their domestication of livestock. The Eastern Sudanic unity must have been considerably earlier still, perhaps around the 5th millennium BC (while the proposed Nilo-Saharan unity would date to the Upper Paleolithic about 15,000 years ago). The original locus of the early Nilotic speakers was presumably east of the Nile in what is now South Sudan. The Proto-Nilotes of the 3rd millennium BC were pastoralists, while their neighbors, the Proto-Central Sudanic peoples, were mostly agriculturalists.[10]]

 

2.       Haplogroup E1b1a is a direct basal branch of Y-chromosome haplogroup E-V38, which originated in the Horn of Africa about 42,300 years before present. (Fifth Migration to Sudan (Haplogroup E – Balanta Ancestors; purple on map page 57)

 

3.       Around 9000 YBP, when the Sahara went through a period of maximum humidity (Aumassip et al. 1988), several Neolithic cultures flourished in the area, bringing together people of sub‐Saharan and North African origin (Dutour et al. 1988).

 

4.       Although the founder L0a1 haplotype is shared in an east-to-west corridor, an intriguing increased frequency of L0a1 in the Balanta might parallel A1-M31 and A3b2-M13 Y chromosomes in representing East African traces. The emerging lineages are exclusive of Guineans, indicating a rapid spread and local expansion after arrival. These may therefore reflect the arrival of their ancestors in the Holocene, about seven thousand years ago.

 

5.       Haplogroup E in general is believed to have originated in Northeast Africa,[11] and was later introduced to West Africa from where it spread around 5,000 years ago to Central, Southern and Southeastern Africa with the Bantu expansion.[12][13]

 

6.       Nevertheless the most important finding is that Balanta, Papel and Felupe-Djola are the only people in Guinea-Bissau to show “pure” East African inheritance (L0a, L3e, L3f1 and L3h mtDNAs, combined with A1, A3b2, E3* and E3b* Y chromosomes), further supporting their East African origin. . . . While some studies suggest linguistic affinities between Balanta and the Sudanese family, their spread related to that of Cushitic migrants (Quintino 1964), others hypothesize on their common origin with Bantu, near the Nile in the Late Pleistocene (Stuhlmann 1910).

 

7.       A link of Balanta and Sudanese-speakers is traceable in A3b2-M13 and E3* Y chromosomes (Rosa et al. 2007), found to be frequent among Sudanese and Ethiopians (Underhill et al. 2000, Semino et al. 2002).

 

8.       Even if there are no firm archaeological indications that early Holocene sorghum or millets were being domesticated, the spread of the Sudanic people at that time may be an example of farming/language dispersal (Ehret 1997, Ehret 2003). This dispersal could have extended to all the Sahara, including West Sahara, with later introgressions to the Niger-Congo speakers (Bellwood 2005). Under such model, and together with the genetic evidence, the Balanta’s Sudanese origin gains relevance. A common origin with the Bantu, one of most notable people in the sub-Saharan agricultural context, may suggest that different peoples jointly learnt agricultural techniques, and thus be a support for the expansion observed in the paternal pool of the Balanta.”

 

9.       Interestingly, only the Balanta, a group claiming Sudanese origin, showed an increased frequency of this clade (11%). Haplogroup L0a has a Paleolithic time depth in East African populations (33,000 year old, Salas et al. 2002).

 

10.    M1 in the Balanta‐Djola group, suggests a correlation between the genetic and linguistic affiliation of Guinean populations. The presence of M1 in Balanta populations supports the earlier suggestion of their Sudanese origin.

 

11.    The origin of the Balantas is uncertain. Some see language affinities with the Sudanese from whom they could have separated 2000 years ago with the first spread of Kushites migrations (Quintino, 1964). According to Stuhlmann (1910), the group derives from a Bantu branch, which separated in the Pleistocene near the Nile, following Kamite invasions.”

My sons, there is thus solid evidence that our Bantu ancestors are descendants from the Nilotic Sudanese who lived in what was called Ta-Nihisi. As we will see, from as early as 5,000 BCE up until 300 BCE, our ancestors started migrating westward from this area. I cannot prove from which one of the groups in Ta-Nihisi, whether Lower, Upper or Southern Nubia, our ancestors belonged, and from which exodus they left. However, genetic testing in the future may allow us to determine this.