4 Dinkas from v62+HO dataset 23andme format

The Dinka primarily live along the Nile in South Sudan. They belong to the Nilotic language family, which connects them linguistically to other groups like the Nuer and Luo.

Genetically, Dinka are somewhat closely related to West Africans. Ironically, they are closer genetically to West African Yorubas and Igbos than they are to Somalis, who actually partially descend from Nilotic populations. Dinka show continuity with ancient populations such as the Mota hunter-gatherer of Ethiopia, reflecting deep East African ancestry with minimal West Eurasian admixture.

The Dinka are known for their exceptional height, with averages often cited around 6 foot 2 for men and 5 feet 11 for women, making them among the tallest populations in the world. This is likely due to a mix of genetics, nutrition, and environmental adaptation.

In terms of interactions, the Dinka have long existed at the crossroads of African civilizations:

To the north, they had indirect contact with Islamic and Arabized populations in Sudan and Egypt, especially after the spread of Islam into the Nile Valley.

They interacted with neighboring groups like the Nubians and various Cushitic-speaking peoples, though they largely maintained their own cultural identity.

In more recent centuries, they were affected by slave raids and conflicts tied to expanding Islamic states in Sudan.

For this video, I’ve gathered the raw genomes of 4 Dinka men from the aadr v62 + .HO dataset. Unfortunately, these raw files lack haplogroup-relevant data, so we will only be focusing on autosomal DNA here. I used my trait predictor to analyze their genomes.