Abstract
The Bandafassi Study was initiated in 1970 as a research project on population genetics. Its objectives were to describe the genetic structure of an African population, to measure the genetic micro-differentiation between subgroups of this population (e.g. villages, lineages), and to examine which mechanisms were the more important ones: genetic selection, genetic drift, founder effects, marriage patterns, or past history of migrations. Information would be gathered from census, genealogies, and blood types. The population chosen for the study was the Mandenka Niokholonko, a small population of about 1,000 in the département of Kedougou in Eastern Senegal. The existence of a larger multidisciplinary project of the Musee de l’Homme of Paris for studying the entire populations of this department made the choice easy.