title: Genetic evidence of African slavery at the beginning of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
abstract: An archaeological excavation in Valle da Gafaria (Lagos, Portugal), revealed two contiguous burial places outside the medieval city walls, dating from the 15(th)-17(th) centuries AD: one was interpreted as a Leprosarium cemetery and the second as an urban discard deposit, where signs of violent, unceremonious burials suggested that these remains may belong to slaves captured in Africa by the Portuguese. We obtained random short autosomal sequence reads from seven individuals: two from the latter site and five from the Leprosarium and used these to call SNP identities and estimate ancestral affinities with modern reference data. The Leprosarium site samples were less preserved but gave some probability of both African and European ancestry. The two discard deposit burials each gave African affinity signals, which were further refined toward modern West African or Bantu genotyped samples. These data from distressed burials illustrate an African contribution to a low status stratum of Lagos society at a time when this port became a hub of the European trade in African slaves which formed a precursor to the transatlantic transfer of millions.
authors.affiliation: Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Martiniano
authors.affiliation: Life Sciences Department, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal.
authors.forename: Catarina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Coelho
authors.affiliation: 1] Life Sciences Department, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal [2] Forensic Sciences Centre, Coimbra, Portugal [3] Centro de Investigação em Antropologia e Saúde, Coimbra, Portugal.
authors.forename: Maria Teresa
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Ferreira
authors.affiliation: 1] Life Sciences Department, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal [2] Dryas Arqueologia Lda., Coimbra, Portugal [3] Centro de Investigação em Antropologia e Saúde, Coimbra, Portugal.
authors.forename: Maria João
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Neves
authors.affiliation: 1] School of Archaeology, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland [2] UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
authors.forename: Ron
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pinhasi
authors.affiliation: Smurfit Institute of Genetics, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
authors.forename: Daniel G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Bradley
mesh_terms: D001106:Archaeology; D044383:Black People / Q000235:genetics*; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry; D063948:Enslaved Persons / Q000266:history; D005828:Genetics, Population; D005838:Genotype; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D049668:History, 15th Century; D049669:History, 16th Century; D006801:Humans; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial
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