DNA study challenges Ameru Middle East origin myths

The study also found descendants of Deputy President Kithure Kindiki, the Tharaka people, have unique DNA, different from the other sub-tribes.

For generations, the Ameru people's oral traditions have told a dramatic story.

According to the narrative, their ancestors came from faraway lands, possibly the Middle East.

They are said to have crossed a large body of water, the River Nile or the Red Sea, before settling on the slopes of Mount Kenya.

However, new genetic research is now challenging this account, suggesting the truth may be far less exotic and much closer to home.

A new study based on DNA analysis of 132 Ameru elders finds that most of their ancestry is African, pointing to East, Central and West Africa rather than distant regions.

“In conclusion, Ameru, like the other Bantu speakers, originated from Africa,” says the study conducted by six researchers from Maseno University, led by biologist Prof David Onyango.

The co-authors are Raphael Anampiu, Cyrus Ayieko, Lilian Magonya, Roselida Achieng Owuor, Gordon Obote Magaga and Brian Andika.

The researchers examined mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down from mothers, to trace the community’s origins and movements over time.

Their paper, The Origin and Migration of the Ameru Community in Kenya based on mtDNA analysis, is available online but has not been peer-reviewed by other scientists.

To understand how the Maseno researchers reached their conclusions, it helps to know how genetic testing works.

Every human being carries DNA, which is passed from parents to children. A special type, called mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), is passed almost unchanged from mothers to their children across many generations.

Over time, small changes, known as markers, occur in this DNA. Scientists group these markers into families called haplogroups. Each haplogroup is linked to a place in the world where it first appeared.

By examining which haplogroups people have today, researchers can trace where their ancestors likely came from and how they moved over time.

Prof Onyango’s team collected blood samples from Ameru men aged at least 65 from the community’s dialect groups: Igembe, Tharaka, Igoji, Mwimbi, Tigania, Chuka, Imenti and Muthambi.

They focused on older people because their DNA is more likely to reflect earlier generations with less recent mixing.

“Only male participants were enrolled to reduce redundancy arising from sampling close maternal relatives within the same household clusters,” they said.

The DNA was extracted in the laboratory, and specific sections were analysed using sequencing machines. The results were then compared with global DNA databases to identify where similar patterns are found.

The findings show that the majority of Ameru maternal lineages fall within African genetic groups, mainly in East Africa, with additional links to Central and West Africa.

This suggests the Meru are part of the wider Bantu migration that spread across sub-Saharan Africa over many centuries.

“The haplotype analysis showed that up to 75 per cent of the Ameru have L haplotype. This haplotype is shared with the rest of Africa populations. The predominant haplotypes originate from East Africa, namely L3 (40 per cent) and L4 (15 per cent),” Prof Onyango’s team explained.

“The existence of haplotypes L0 (20 per cent), L1 (three per cent), and L5 (two per cent), evident of Southern and Central Africa haplotypes, is also reported,” they added.

However, the team also found small traces of non-African ancestry in some subgroups.

These include genetic markers linked to the Middle East and parts of Asia, particularly among the Imenti and Tigania groups.

This, the researchers said, may be explained by one of their migration routes into Kenya.

They noted that the Meru folklore about crossing the Red Sea may not be entirely fictional.

“Ameru, like the other Bantu speakers, originated from Africa and migrated through the Horn of Africa to the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula and West Asia, before returning to Africa through Madagascar, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Mozambique and Tanzania, and eventually to Kenya,” they said.

The researchers also found wide diversity among the Ameru, suggesting they are not a single uniform group but rather a collection of communities with different ancestral paths that came together over time.

For example, the Imenti subgroup showed little connection to some of the common African haplogroups found in other Ameru groups.

The Tharaka, where Deputy President Kithure Kindiki has roots, are purely African.

“Except for the Tharaka people, all the other subtribes had mtDNA haplotypes from outside Africa,” Prof Onyango’s team said.

Genetic evidence is often considered more reliable than oral traditions because it is based on physical data that can be tested and repeated.