Two people who lived in England in the early Middle Ages recently had sub-Saharan African ancestors.
“This DNA shows that there is a material connection to humans and spreads to West Africa,” a research co-author of Duncan Sayer, a historical archaeologist at the University of Lancashire in the UK, told Live Science in an email.
Archaeologists discovered the burial of an adolescent girl at Updown Cemetery in Kent and the burial of a young man at Worth Matravers Cemetery in Dorset. Both cemeteries located in the southern part of England were dated in the 7th century, when the Anglo-Saxon people occupied the island after the fall of the Roman Empire.
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DNA analysis of five people buried in Updown and 18 people buried in valuable Matravars found that most of these individuals had British and Ireland ancestors in Northern Europe or Western, researchers reported in 2022.
In two studies published on Wednesday (August 13) in the Ancient Journal, the researchers detailed the unusual genetic background of Updown girls and Worth Matravers youths.
Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of young people handed over from mother to child revealed that both mothers were from Northern Europe. However, their autosomal DNA, derived from chromosomes that do not encode biological sex, showed distinct signals from non-European ancestors.
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“As such, both individuals exhibited a mixed genetic and geographical descent, with an estimated 20% to 40% of ancestors, characteristic of sub-Saharan Africa, Sayer and colleagues wrote in this study. The team found that Updown Girl’s DNA had an affinity to the DNA of the current Yoruba, Mende, Mandenka and Esan groups.
Based on the statistical model, the researchers propose that both people have African ancestors and grandparents.
The fact that these individuals were buried in their communities suggests that they were evaluated by their peers, the authors wrote in their study.
The up and down girl was filled with a knife, a spoon, a bone comb near her left hip, and a decorated pot of Frank Gaur. DNA analysis also revealed that she had a biological relative in the same cemetery. Meanwhile, the valuable Matravars young man was buried in a double grave with an older man who was not biologically associated.
Tracy Prowse, a biofactorologist at McMaster University in Ontario who was not involved in the study, told Live Science via email that the researchers “do a good job discussing historical evidence of trade in Africa and Northern countries.”
Given the previous discoveries of diverse individuals dating back to the Roman Empire, including the ivory bangle lady found in York, who may have had North African ancestors, “the presence of these individuals in the 7th century British Updown and Worth Matravers is not awfully surprising,” Prowse said.
However, Sayer does not believe there is a continuity between Roman people with African ancestors and 7th century people found in the southern part of England. After Germanic Vandal dismissed Rome in 455 AD, they established a kingdom in North Africa. However, the Byzantine Empire then conquered them with AD 534.
“At the end of the Roman era, North Africa was conquered by the destroyers,” Sayer said. “This was a reunion in the mid-6th century (approximately 533-535), and it appears to be a significant event here.”
DNA data showing African ancestry “unexpectedly consistent” with archaeological and historical evidence, researchers wrote in their studies, shedding new light on the early days of Britain.
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