List of ethnic groups of Africa Puns

The explanation I've always heard is that Africa has high ethnic diversity because humans have been there the longest and so changes have had the most time to accrue. However, this assumes that populations don't mix to the point they become indistinguishable. Why has that lack of thorough mixing persisted for thousands of years, when if you look at groups on a map many seem to be bunched up close together?

I can think of two factors that might be doing work:

1. Maps are misleading - if terrain is difficult to travel on, then the "lived" geographic distance will function as much greater than the objective one.

2. Widespread cultural norms mean it's rare for anyone to marry outside the ethnic group, so the ethnic group persists.

However, I'm not really happy with either of these explanations. Surely terrain is impassable in a few locations, but could it really be so for so many as it'd need to be? And how and why would such strong norms against outgroup marriage arise so frequently? It seems implausible.

I have three main questions.

1. Which of the two factors above should be given more weight? Are both playing an important role?

2. Are there other factors here that I'm not seeing that do heavy explanatory lifting? This is my main main question.

3. Where can I read more about why Africa is so ethnically and genetically diverse, keeping in mind the problem that time is necessary but not sufficient for this degree of diversity to exist?

All help appreciated, thanks.

(posting here since askscience mod said this is too inflammatory) My title might sounds odd so let me clarify here, he says that due to a founder population of original people who left Africa to live in Asia and Europe we are quite similar in genetics to each other then say African groups are. That I understand (I'm a soc major not a science person so if that is wrong let me know) but what I can't really believe is that in your own ethnic group (say Chinese) you could be more similar to someone from Finland then a fellow Chinese person because very little genes control skin tone.

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