Gammaglobulin groups (Gm and Inv) of various Southern African populations

Data are presented on the distribution of the Gm and Inv groups in approximately 3500 individuals belonging to a number of diverse Southern African populations. The indigenous peoples show the presence of the Gm alleles known to occur in Negroes (Gm^{1, 5, 13, 14}, Gm^{1, 5, 6, 14} and Gm^{1, 5, 6}) but the Bushmen possess some of them in very low frequencies and have, in addition and in appreciable frequencies the Gm¹ and Gm^{1, 13} alleles which have not been reported as occurring in West African populations. The distribution of the Gm^{1, 13} allele in various Bantu-speaking tribes of the sub-continent reveals a marked cline, increasing from north to south along the eastern seaboard. The correlation between the frequency of Gm^{1, 13} and the Khoisan morphological, features present in a number of the tribes, and with the linguistic evidence which has been used to group them is high. The Bushmen possess a Gm^{1, 5} allele and may also have a Gm^{1, 5, 13, 14, 17, 21} allele. A Gm^{1, 2, 5, 13, 14, 17} allele seems to be present in the Bantu. Its presence in Eastern New Guinea would also appear to be indicated by the population data presented here.