quality:correction
Genetics

Genetic studies have found evidence that African Pygmies are descended from the Middle Stone Age peopling of Central Africa, with a separation time from West and East Africans of the order 130,000 years.African Pygmies in the historical period have been significantly displaced by, and assimilated to, several waves of Niger–Congo and Nilo-Saharan speakers, of the Central Sudanic, Ubangian, and Bantu phyla.

Genetically, African pygmies have some key differences between them and Bantu peoples. African pygmies' uniparental markers display the most ancient divergence from other human groups among anatomically modern humans, second only to those displayed among some Khoisan populations. Researchers identified an ancestral and autochthonous lineage of mtDNA shared by Pygmies and Bantus, suggesting that both populations were originally one, and that they started to diverge from common ancestors around 70,000 years ago. After a period of isolation, during which current phenotype differences between Pygmies and Bantu farmers accumulated, Pygmy women started marrying male Bantu farmers (but not the opposite). This trend started around 40,000 years ago, and continued until several thousand years ago. Subsequently, the Pygmy gene pool was not enriched by external gene influxes.

Mitochondrial haplogroup L1c is strongly associated with pygmies, especially with Bambenga groups. L1c prevalence was variously reported as: 100% in Ba-Kola, 97% in Aka (Ba-Benzélé), and 77% in Biaka, 100% of the Bedzan (Tikar), 97% and 100% in the Baka people of Gabon and Cameroon, respectively, 97% in Bakoya (97%), and 82% in Ba-Bongo. Mitochondrial haplogroups L2a and L0a are prevalent among the Bambuti.

Patin, et al. (2009) suggest two unique, late Pleistocene (before 60,000 years ago) divergences from other human populations, and a split between eastern and western pygmy groups about 20,000 years ago.