Y DNA
A Y-chromosome study by Wood et al. (2005) tested various populations in Africa for paternal lineages, including 26 Maasai and 9 Luo from Kenya and 9 Alur from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The signature Nilotic paternal marker Haplogroup A3b2 was observed in 27% of the Maasai, 22% of the Alur, and 11% of the Luo. Haplogroup B, another characteristically Nilotic paternal marker according to Gomes et al. (2010), was found in 22% of Wood et al.'s Luo samples and 8% of the studied Maasai. The E1b1b haplogroup was also observed in 50% of the Maasai, which is indicative of substantial gene flow into this population from Cushitic males. In addition, 67% of the Alur samples possessed the Sub-Saharan E2 haplogroup.
Another study by Hassan et al. (2008) analysed the Y-DNA of populations in the Sudan region, with various local Nilotic groups included for comparison. The researchers found the signature Nilotic A and B clades to be the most common paternal lineages amongst the Nilo-Saharan speakers, except those inhabiting western Sudan, where an appreciable North African influence was noted. Haplogroup A was observed amongst 62% of Dinka, 53.3% of Shilluk, 46.4% of Nuba, 33.3% of Nuer, 31.3% of Fur and 18.8% of Masalit. Haplogroup B was found in 50% of Nuer, 26.7% of Shilluk, 23% of Dinka, 14.3% of Nuba, 3.1% of Fur and 3.1% of Masalit. The E1b1b clade was also observed in 71.9% of the Masalit, 59.4% of the Fur, 39.3% of the Nuba, 20% of the Shilluk, 16.7% of the Nuer, and 15% of the Dinka. Hassan et al. attributed the atypically high frequencies of the haplogroup in the Masalit to either a recent population bottleneck that likely altered the community's original haplogroup diversity or to geographical proximity to E1b1b's place of origin in North Africa, where the researchers suggest that the clade "might have been brought to Sudan from after the progressive desertification of the Sahara around 6,000–8,000 years ago". Henn et al. (2008) similarly observed Afro-Asiatic influence in the Nilotic Datog of northern Tanzania, 43% of whom carried the M293 sub-clade of E1b1b.
Read more about this topic: Nilotic Peoples, Genetics
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