A genetic study has revealed the history of pygmy tribes scattered across western and central Africa, and it's a story that might surprise the the people themselves. Pygmies are defined as groups of people whose adult men are typically less than 4 feet 11 inches in height, but they have little in common besides that physical characteristic and the word pygmy, which was foisted on them. But a genetic analysis of pygmies living in Gabon and Cameroon suggests that the first group of pygmies split off from other humans at least 50,000 years ago, and that ancestral population
survived intact until 2800 years ago when farmers invaded the pygmies' territory and split them apart [ScienceNOW Daily News].
European explorers first encountered pygmy populations in the 19th century and lumped them together under a name that Homer used in the Iliad to describe an African tribe of diminutive crane-fighters.... Many of ...
